


Six Impossible Things

by LadyLuckDoubt



Category: Gyakuten Saiban | Ace Attorney
Genre: Angst, F/M, M/M, Phoenix Wright Kink Meme
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-18
Updated: 2011-03-18
Packaged: 2017-10-17 02:06:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 47,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/171817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyLuckDoubt/pseuds/LadyLuckDoubt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Miles finally comes to terms with his feelings for Phoenix and returns to tell him this, years after the events of Hazakura.</p><p>However, the Phoenix Wright he returns to is a different person, with a new life, new roles and relationships. The rest of the world has changed, and somehow he has to catch up and make things as right as he can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Impossible

**Author's Note:**

> Again, from the Kink Meme:
> 
>  _Before Edgeworth went back to Germany after GS3, Phoenix told him he loved him. Edgeworth couldn't comprehend this at the time, even though he liked Phoenix._
> 
>  _Just before he got on the plane, Phoenix told him 'I'll wait for you. I don't care how long it takes. You can come back at any time and I'll still be here'._
> 
>  _Flash forward to GS4-time. Something, anything, has caused Edgeworth to accept his own emotions and return to America._
> 
>  _Except when he gets back, he finds that Phoenix is in a steady relationship with someone else. Obviously, Miles is upset. He knows he's being stupid and selfish - how could he expect Phoenix to go without intimacy for 7 years? - but he can't help remembering Phoenix's promise and feeling betrayed and humiliated that he actually believed it._

There were six impossible things which happened before breakfast that morning.

February 14th, 2019. Valentine's Day-- how sentimental.

Miles Edgeworth had never been one for sentimentality, and only in hindsight did he realise and appreciate the significance of the date, that strange Wednesday evening which blurred into what should have been an unremarkable Thursday morning, which could never be remembered as such due to the events which took place in those pre-dawn hours.

The first of those impossible things was that he'd seen Wright cry. 

It wasn't that that was especially impossible, he supposed, all human bodies have a need to excrete waste-- he'd heard somewhere that tears were an essential part of being human, that the body released them to remove dust and dirt and foreign bodies from the delicate tissue around the eye. He didn't know how true that was; he was a student of law, not biology, so it was perfectly possible that the fact that Wright was crying wasn't an especially impossible feat.

It was just that he'd never seen it before, and he'd never seen Wright looking so vulnerable.

  
The second impossible thing was that Wright had laughed, his face still moist with tears, it was a chuckle of irony. His own voice was hollow with disbelief, and he wasn't quite sure what was so amusing. 

"I thought you were romantically interested in Sister  _Iris_ ," he'd said after the confession. "Which was why I'd never said anything." He paused uncomfortably. The statement which preceded that had been beyond impossible, it had been surreal, one which he couldn't quite believe and felt the need to shoot down with logic. "I'd always thought that you preferred  _company_  of the  _female_  kind."

And Wright had blushed, a tinge coming into his face as he rubbed the back of his neck. "I suppose I have a lot of female friends," he'd said. "I guess I find it easier to talk to women, that's all." He'd chuckled again. "But I'd be around a four on the Kinsey scale if you want to get technical. A four or a five." He'd smiled shyly then, and Miles could see the way he trembled in the muted light of his living room.

"Why didn't you say anything earlier?" 

"I just didn't think I had a snowball's chance in hell with you, Edgeworth."

Then the third impossible thing happened; they'd kissed. It felt so organic and unscripted, yet managed to be like something out of a movie; in hindsight, Miles would spend years attributing the kiss to an overindulgence of bourbon on Wright's part and gin on his own; but in that moment, it was a glorious, exploratory moment. His mouth was soft and warm and inviting; he tasted sweet and smoky courtesy of the alcohol, his tongue seemed more experienced than his own, and he yielded to the kiss and to Miles' touch in a way Miles, at that point, felt too still shocked and reserved to.

The fourth impossible thing was that it hadn't stopped; that Phoenix Wright had no qualms about taking it further, that his gesture seemed so desperate and as though they'd reached some sort of a destination-- it was an ending of sorts, a strange sort of celebration, as though they were both able to sigh with the relief of years of awkwardness between them finally being  _over_.

Miles always liked closure; he longed for it, he fantasised about it. In hindsight he'd come to realise that he needed closure because he'd missed or avoided it when it came to the most dramatic and shape-shifting events of his life; he'd never had it when his mother had died, he'd never had it when his father had been killed, and he'd fled overseas before Manfred met his date with the executioner's needle.

The kiss was the thud of a gong, symbolising the end of an era. It was a sweet, beautiful sound.

 

The fifth impossible thing was when Wright had taken him in the shower; joking, at first, about his obsessive-compulsive attitude to personal hygiene and leaving him alone initially, then changing his mind and walking into the bathroom, startling him with his nakedness and his arousal. He'd unabashedly walked behind the pane of glass, had unhooked the showerhead from its cradle, turned the spray to the wall behind him, and gently pushed him against the warmed slate tiling.

Miles had been too startled, to aroused, too full of disbelief to say anything, but his kisses and the slight moans and rumbling, appreciative sounds he'd made were more than enough indication for Wright to know that this was acceptable.

He found himself wondering, as Wright found an alternative use for his organic shea and cucumber conditioner, if he could get used to this, or if it would be forever lost in some part of a dreamscape unrealised at the moment. Did it mean anything? He knew at the height of orgasm, men would say just about anything, that lust and sheer unadulterated pleasure could cause incoherency and strangeness to rise to the surface; that mother tongues could be remembered and grunted out, that atheists could scream for god, that usually the verbally astute could be reduced to a collection of gasps and mewls and obscenities. 

Wright didn't do any of these things as his thrusts increased in speed and force; he yelped with a kind of strained "Ah-ahhh-ahh" and threw his head back, closing his eyes, the shower spray pelting down on the both of them, his hands still holding his shoulders steadily, his mouth thrusting forwards to steal a few more aggressive kisses; claiming him, for that moment, as his own. 

Miles remembered his own reaction-- something about seeing Wright like that, human and perfectly vulnerable and without any kind of airs-- the strange strangled yelp and the way the water ran down him like that, the taut rosy skin and those  _hands_  on him, the pressure and the way he was moving into him-- the world went black for a moment a his eyes shut, there was the shudder and he felt himself go weak, wondering how he was going to remain standing. The spray of the shower washed them clean but didn't stop the kisses, the throaty mewls of mutual pleasure, the dazed and contented bliss which followed.

He couldn't allow himself to believe it was more than Wright being very  _very_  good at physical activity.

  
The next impossible thing which had happened wasn't when they retired to bed, Wright wearing a pair of his pyjamas which were slightly too big for him; nor was it Wright turning to him coyly in the darkness and asking "Are we clean enough for another go?" nor was it the fact that he'd fallen asleep next to him and stayed there.

No.

The sixth impossible thing had been in the monochrome light hours later, when Wright had kissed him on the lips as they realised that they were both somehow awake, and had blinked, those big blue eyes almost embarrassed. 

"I know it's forward and probably too early and I shouldn't ruin the moment," he babbled stupidly, "But I know there's been this weirdness between us for  _years_ , Edgeworth, but-- god, I love you."

That was the sixth impossible thing, and the damning one.

 

Something had changed with that statement. Something twisted and horrible and ironic and unfair, but Miles was determined to keep a brave face. 

 

They had breakfast in a little cafe near the noodle stand where Wright would often grab a quick on-the-go lunch, some casual, pointless conversation about nothing as the day began, they'd headed off to their respective offices in a still hazy sense of whatever it was from the night before.

But Miles was aware of the sense of ill ease moving through him. Love was serious--  _everything_  was serious, but to make a statement like that, in the perfectly earnest and heartfelt manner in which Wright had had been been even moreso.

He wasn't sure whether he wanted love. Love was complicated and messy and carnal-- entertainers who depicted it in films understated the intensity, love could be wrapped up in under two hours with a happy ending. Those who sang of it said it was some sort of higher order, love could drive you crazy, possess and intoxicate you, cause you sleepless nights, make you vulnerable and distracted, and in his years as a prosecutor, Miles knew one thing to be clear and true: love could cause people to destroy one another.

He evaded it; he kept his distance from Wright, kept their phone calls brief and short in the two weeks he remained in America. He kept his voice even and calm, and was relieved when the subject never presented itself again, grateful once again for Wright having the tact not to bring it up. 

But he could tell there was an enthusiasm there which hadn't been before. The light in his eyes, the sweet little gestures, the way he looked as though he wanted to spontaneously giggle or jump in the air in a public place-- that public place at the time being People Park.

 

It was an ordinary park, flat grassed ground with a small playground for children off to the side, a few trees and a drinking fountain, the red and white stripes of a hotdog vendor's cart somewhere in the distance behind them.

Miles had made his decision; he'd agreed to meet Wright after work, to tell him of his decision on mutual grounds, somewhere public, where hopefully emotion wouldn't be able to get the better of either of them, lest something  _emotional_  come about. 

As the sun set and they sat on a bench, they spoke quietly to one another. It had started innocently enough.

"I'm glad we're able to do this." The enthusiasm hadn't left Wright; he seemed even giddier lately, and for a moment Miles felt a pang of guilt-- had suggesting they go  _out_  been assumed to be something  _significant_?

"As am I," Miles agreed, feeling the pull of  _something_  worsening. "I'm glad I reconnected with you, Wright."

He smiled then, leaning over and cupping his chin with a hand, pressing their lips together for a lazy, contented kiss. 

"I--"

"I have something I need to tell you." His dismissal of whatever Wright was about to say was so harsh and final that he almost felt guilty, and curiousity drive him to want to know what Wright was going to say to him.

"I hate how you say that," Wright said with a grin. "It reminds me of when the police have to tell someone that their kid has died, or like when I was a kid and I'd be informed that I'd been caught doing something that I shouldn't have, or--"

"I'm going to be spending awhile abroad."

Suddenly Wright's smile vanished. "How long?" he asked softly.

  
"I don't know yet," Miles replied, calm and now consumed with guilt. "It could be indeterminate."

"What's  _that_  supposed to mean?"

"It means I don't know yet." He could feel his body tensing with dread as he spoke; he knew it wouldn't be pleasant telling Wright about this, but he didn't imagine how those blue eyes would deaden and how Wright's mouth would hang open, slack with hurt and disbelief as though he'd just been punched.

"Can't you... tell them you have  _things to do_  here?" The look on his face was desperate, as though he was trying to calm himself and laugh instead. "Like  _me_?"

The worst of it was that Miles wasn't heading overseas because he'd been  _asked_. He'd arranged the trip himself; he needed space, to get away. it wasn't as though he was doing what he did last time; he wasn't disappearing, there was no suggestion of him not returning-- even though he mightn't and had no immediate plans to.

He shook his head slowly. "I'm leaving tomorrow morning, Wright."

That was when he'd felt the full blow of it; Wright's face crumpling like a discarded catalogue; the best he could do, treacherous as it made him feel, was to reach around him and put an arm over his shoulders, pulling him close to his own body, allowing him to muffle his face into his shoulder-- if only to avoid seeing the expression on it and to pretend that maybe Wright didn't actually just sniffle then.

He felt a strange lump in his throat, and wondered if he could somehow pull a Wright of his own, a turnabout which would see him overthrowing the entire mess, if he could cancel everything at last minute and just not  _go_.

Which would still leave the initial problem there, that Wright said he loved him. It wasn't going to become easier if he became sentimental.

He felt Wright pulling away from him in that moment, and saw him gaze up into the nondescript sunset, the strange gradient of pink and white and blue merging together but not quite. 

"I'll see you off at the airport, then," he said.

"You don't need to do that."

"No one else will, and..."

To avoid the growing lump in his throat, Miles pressed a kiss to his jaw. "I can take care of myself."

Wright chuckled, the sniffle in his voice clearly evident now. "No you can't," he said playfully. "That's why you've always had Gumshoe and I..."

"I'll be  _fine_ , Wright."

"Still," he said insistently, "I'm seeing you off at the airport."

There was a brief silence as the two stared out into the expanse of the sunset.

"It's a beautiful sunset, isn't it?" Wright asked vaguely. "It's all chaotic and messy and uneven tonight."

Miles didn't say anything-- the sunset did  _not_  look beautiful, and for precisely the reasons Wright had stated it  _was_. It was as though that statement somehow symbolised something, confirmed his suspicions, that remaining in America and around him was a terrible idea. He felt a little better.

"It's funny how much we get used to sunsets, how much we take them for granted. And how, whether we notice them or not, the sun still rises and sets anyway." 

Wright could be strangely romantic and insightful, Miles thought to himself. If Wright was looking at loving someone, he deserved someone who would appreciate that.

They headed back to his apartment soon afterwards, and made love for a second and final time. It wasn't romantic, Miles thought to himself afterwards, it was mere sentimental distraction.

 

 

 

"So you're just leaving everything here?"

"Yes." 

The sun was only rising; both of them were still tired. Miles wanted to be on the plane now, to be away from this tired-and-frantic feeling that he couldn't quite stop. The cab driver ignored them as they drove down the freeway in the slowly developing morning light. This side of the world was just waking up, still.

What had needed to be packed and taken had been, and was in the trunk of the vehicle. Everything else remained at home or in the office, and thinking about it some more, Miles admitted that he'd probably made a rash and stupid decision, giving no thought to a few houseplants and the food in the refrigerator. No major complication, of course-- Gumshoe could be trusted to call past if need be; the detective would be  _flattered_  to be able to assist him.

He felt another pang of guilt when he thought of Gumshoe; in their years of working together he still wasn't sure whether he found his concern for him pleasantly affectionate or stifling. Either way, Gumshoe  _could_  be counted on if there was a need, and at that moment, he was grateful for it.

It was a silent taxi ride barring Wright's question about just  _leaving_. Beyond his quiet one-word response he offered nothing, and the driver all but ignored them. At one stage, Wright's hand rested on his thigh and he could feel himself shaking under it; irritated, he flinched away. Wright made no further gestures. It was like some part of him  _realised_  and he could calm down with that knowledge, though there was a strange sort of emptiness in that.

"Do you have money to get a cab back to the city?" Miles asked after they'd carried out his luggage and checked it in.

"Yeah," Wright admitted. He was rubbing his neck again, uncomfortable.

Half an hour til takeoff. 

They looked up at the boards, watching numbers flicker advising landings and takeoffs, departures and arrivals. Airports used to make him tense; there was so much activity controlled in one relatively small area. There were emotional people; rushed people, sad people, overjoyed people. In the years he'd become accustomed to international travel the activity ceased to bother him, but the emotional responses of strangers still did. He felt intrusive looking at their faces, seeing tears or stress or elation-- perhaps if he'd been reacting to something as well, it wouldn't have been so strange, but it was rare for Miles to react.

Twenty minutes til takeoff.

"I suppose we should head up to the boarding lounge." 

Wright nodded and followed him, having offered to carry his on-board briefcase for him; Miles had acquiesced; it was as though Wright longed to be helpful or some kind of comfort-- the least he could do was allow that and not explain that the primary reason he was leaving was  _him_.

Ten minutes.

Planes were landing and taking off outside; baggage handlers and other airport staff with roles neither of them could ascertain walked about on the ground below. Looking out the window, standing alongside one another, Wright casually tapped him on the shoulder.

"I'm going to miss you," he said quietly. "I spent fifteen years of my life trying to see you again, and it feels like I'm just losing you to... whatever's out there."

Miles nodded curtly. "I'm not  _dying_ , Wright," he said. "And we have means of contacting one another-- surely you've learned how to use email by now, haven't you? And I  _know_  you have that phone of yours." He smiled back weakly.

"I always feel like I'm interrupting something when I  _do_  contact you."

"I'm always being interrupted, Wright, because I like to keep myself busy."

Was that some sort of defense attorney roundabout fashion of asking him to call or email? He wasn't sure.

"And even if you don't call--" Was that a choked up sound in the back of Wright's throat?-- Miles looked steadfastly out the window as the silhouette of an enormous plane of some description lifted into the sky-- "You'll know where to find me." He reached out once again, tentatively touching Miles' elbow, his thumb and forefinger idly playing with the magenta crease in his suit-- "It's not like I'm going anywhere, Edgeworth-- I certainly don't feel like any trips up to the mountains at the moment, and I've got the office established now and..." 

"I realise that." There was a terseness, a nervousness in his own voice which he couldn't place for some reason. Was he angry with Wright? Or just irritated?

"I mean it-- it's not like I didn't mean anything by what I said two weeks ago-- I'll wait for you, Edgeworth... I've already waited fifteen years-- what's another fifteen, anyway?" He chuckled.

Five.

"Let's not get sentimental," Miles said. He turned to Wright, and the look on his face caused him to recoil in shock, tilting his head to the side, gripping his elbow with his hand. When he was younger, he used to do that and pinch himself; or dig his nails into his skin, leaving nasty little half-moon bites from his nails.

Manfred had told him that it made him look weak, so he'd stopped that, but he still found himself instinctively clutching his shoulder.

"That would be foolish, wouldn't it?" There was a laugh in Wright's voice despite the glistening twinkle in his eyes. 

A bell sounded behind them somewhere. " _Flight CT-three-zero-four-six, now boarding..._ "

People were starting to assemble around them; the lounge area had now become crowded.

"I suppose I should get on that plane," Miles heard himself saying, but amongst the rustle and murmur of other voices, and with the look on Wright's face, he had another bout of uncertainty; he wondered if he as stating the obvious aloud to convince himself as much as Wright.

He nodded. 

And then, somewhere in between handing his briefcase back and them shifting towards the line waiting to be boarded, his arms enveloped him in a suffocating hug, holding him tightly, his head finding that nook between neck and shoulder.

"I mean it, Edgeworth," Wright said against his ear, his voice choked with saliva and tears and snot-- "I'll wait for you-- make sure you come by People Park sometime, hey?" There was a little laugh from him and then a murmur of something else which sounded suspiciously like it could have been another  _I love you_.

He felt himself hugging Wright back, convinced once more that he was making the right decision. Sometimes you had to be cruel to be kind. Wright might be sad now, but Miles knew he wouldn't spend too much time alone; Wright was too extroverted, too good at connecting with people-- he had far too many bonding tendencies to wait around for someone. Wright needed, as he did, to figure himself out and find someone compatible with him-- they didn't need strange sentimental hookups; Miles needed to get some breathing space and concentrate on building his experience abroad, Wright needed... he wasn't sure what Wright needed. But it wasn't whatever mess this had the potential to become.

Letting go of Wright and shuffling towards the flight attendant, he gave Wright another nod, refusing to look him in the face. He smiled at the young woman who accepted his boarding pass and walked on into the plane.

He did not turn around.


	2. Slight Return

"I'm tiring of your foolishness." 

Franziska glared at him from across her small living room, where Miles had uncharacteristically appeared, for the first time in weeks.

He wasn't quite sure why he avoided his sister now when they seemed older and much more settled; he'd had longer to get used to her, he supposed-- but hearing her shrill voice made him remember-- she was still just as uncompromising and every bit as terrifying as she was in the court room when she was angry. And she was angry at that moment.

"Look at what you've become, Miles Edgeworth: you turned thirty five this year and you are still foolishly flailing around as though you're a foolishly pathetic teenager."

"I have work commitments," he protested, but Franziska ignored him.

"Work commitments fail to explain your lack of promotion-- you're  _still_  a mere prosecutor"-- ("But I  _like_  being a prosecutor," he'd explained, which she also chose to ignore--) "and you've spent the last seven years moving about with absolutely no sense of direction." She snapped the whip at him, clipping his shoulder, too sharp and nasty to be a gesture of sisterly affection. "And then there are the rumours." 

She leaned in closer to him, watching him blanch uncomfortably. How she'd heard anything was anyone's guess; Miles always thought he'd been reasonably discreet about his affairs. But word travelled and Franziska was neither oblivious nor stupid. And the delay in his response might as well have been a confession of guilt.

"I've  _heard things_  about you, Miles Edgeworth." 

"Why do you  _care_ , Franziska?" He sat against the sofa, regretting arriving. He'd suspected a nice comforting visit would be in order, a brief, polite catch up rather than  _this_ \-- he wasn't sure what do with himself lately and entertained the idea of returning to the States. Since an incident seven years ago, he'd thought about it was a ravenous sort of hunger, but he knew it was shame and a need for distraction, for validation to counteract self-pity and self-loathing.

This could have been a pleasant goodbye or a request for advice.

Frankziska hadn't even thought that far yet, and with the flick of the whip striking him once more, he felt himself returned to reality abruptly.

"Because you were a disciple of von Karma," she hissed. "Because regardless of the relationship you had with my father, his name is now mine, and I do not need my reputation to be dragged through the mud because of  _your_  foolishness." Her voice was rising, and with a flick of her wrist, she struck him again. He flinched, irritated rather than hurt-- years of dealing with her had numbed him to her physical blows and prepared him, at least, for her verbal ones.

He prided himself on not reacting.

But her words this time were a different matter; there was some truth in them. While he'd been dumbfounded by the fact that she seemed to know so much, he couldn't deny what she was saying; he was startled at the truth. 

He was getting older, and the new silver-framed glasses, elegant and stylish, but still a reminder that his eyesight was probably going the way of his father's-- were a visual suggestion as was the slight swell of a belly and the  _lighter_  grey hairs he kept noticing on his head-- they seemed to be making daily appearances and had prompted Miles into using shampoo and conditioner which apparantly restored colour to hair. 

Thankfully, Franziska didn't have any idea about  _that_.

His ageing bothered him in a sense; yes, he was established, a name known worldwide, he was confident and brilliant and talented. He'd surpassed his father, and hoped Gregory would have wanted that. His turbulent involvement with the von Karmas seemed only remembered by Franziska, despite her horror.

But recently, with the emergence of those greyer-than-grey hairs, Miles wondered if he could slow down and settle, if middle age was about to start arriving early and if he could somehow sensibly prepare for it. He wondered what was so compelling about moving from one place to another. He wanted to say his career, but Franziska was correct: he was essentially doing the same thing, running, frantic and constantly occupied.

"Look at you, Miles Edgeworth: you're approaching mid-life and you haven't even managed to settle down." 

There was smugness in that statement, like she could read his mind.

"I object to that," he said quietly. " _You_  can hardly talk about that."

"I have settled somewhat," she said. There was a grin on her face which she couldn't quite hide as she spoke. "A long distance relationship is  _still_  a relationship-- there is still some commitment and concern on my part." She wrinkled her nose, no longer thinking about her own relationship success, about the woman in America who had the infrequent pleasure of seeing her when she had business there. "You, on the other hand, have not even  _tried_." 

He opened his mouth, ready to say something in response, but there was no honest rebuttal and there was no way he could offer a convincing lie in this case; she'd surprised him and left him caught off guard. His shock gave him away.

"And I can only suspect that there is a logical explanation behind your preference for foolish-looking dark-haired men with spiky hair." The look on her face turned to a  _glare_ , disgusted and furious. "And even more foolishly,  _defense_  attorneys."

 _That_  was an observation even he hadn't made, and the recognition of that was so typically Franziska; brutally sharp and deathly accurate. And something, of course, which she couldn't just leave alone but  _had_  to mention to him.

He didn't need to respond for her to know she'd hit a sore point, just as she didn't need to know that there'd been least least  _one_  prosecutor amongst the number of men he'd slept with in the past seven years. 

  
Thinking about the rebuttal he so dearly wanted to offer but couldn't made him think back to returning to the States. He rubbed his temple, frustrated as realisation that she was no longer being listened to dawned upon his sister. Her voice had faded out somewhere, lost amongst shame and thoughts of things he shouldn't have done and with a strange, magical thinking sort of melancholy, he wondered if all of this could have been avoided if he'd not rushed for the airport in the first place.

Then something else occurred to him: what had become of Wright?

Franziska sighed. "Miles Edgeworth, I do not know what to do with you," she said finally. As though he was  _her_  problem. "It has been seven years since you've remained anywhere solidly-- your social life is becoming a thing of rumours, and you seemed to have more friends in America who were..."

He'd kept to himself for much of the time whilst in Europe. He'd shifted from country to country, he'd pointedly avoided settling anywhere for too long; and what had worked in America had worked here; if anyone got close enough to be disturbing, departure was simple.

"Who were  _what_ , Franziska?" he asked with an exaggerated sigh.

For the first time in her life, she looked embarrassed. "You appeared to have more longstanding personal relationships in America as well."

He was already dreading the flick of the whip again, and to be told what he'd know about himself for awhile; that in the past seven years, a search for something yet a desire to keep it at an arm's length, and a certain insatiability-- and the sheer incomprehensible  _terror_  of moving into that realm known as being Involved, Miles Edgeworth had turned into something of a slut.

It was about convenience, he'd told himself, grateful for Franziska choosing to use more tactful description; but as he'd grown older he'd realised he was doing more of the chasing and less of the running away elsewhere, and sometimes a few extra hours lying next to a warm body would have been nice.

More  _longstanding friendships_. He'd never told her about his friends and associates, being typical Franziska she'd just sort of barged her way in and encountered them, judging the relationships and the depths thereof intuitively.

"I know you and Scruffy had an awkward relationship, and I know you and Larry--" she rolled her eyes-- "the foolish fool with the artistic aspirations-- were never close--" Her voice slowed and a cunning look crept into her eyes, the ends of her mouth twitched into a smile and her eyes widened. 

Miles knew that look on her face--  _solved it_.

"--You never told me what happened to Phoenix Wright."

He'd been waiting for it, and not wanting to flinch, it was standing with your face to the wall and a firing squad behind, waiting for that terrifying sweet release of closure.

 _He said he'd wait for me. So I left_.

A new thought occurred to him-- had he been terrified or had be been privately testing Wright? Had he given up on Wright, on  _anyone_  who offered such foolishly sentimental notions under the guise of concern and romance?  _Yes_. Wright had tried to make a compelling argument at the airport, and Wright hadn't even tried calling or emailling.

About a month after arriving he'd decided to clear Wright and that stupid promise from his life, and he'd deleted the man's number from his phone.

Erasing the pathetic idea--  _I'll wait for you_ \-- from his mind-- wasn't so easy. Dozens of sexual partners, work, the horrors of humanity and the bizarre notes of the strangely quirky-- and on more than one occasion, alcohol, and possibly other substances-- had never made him forget.

And he remembered, too, that while he had erased Wright's number from his phone, he'd still kept the man's business card. Just because he hadn't thought to throw it out, that was all-- it was in the inner left pocket of one of his jackets, the slightly more magenta-as-opposed-to-fuchsia one which was a little tight around the waist which he still hung onto in case a midlife crisis propelled him to the gym or Europe pushed him onto a bicycle and forced him to drop a few pounds. And he remembered the location of the card not because he was sentimental or anything like that, but because he was  _organised_.

He thought about what time it was in Wright's timezone. There were eight hours between them, something like that, it would be about ten o'clock in the morning earlier that day.

Not that he knew because he thought about being back there; to the contrary; the fact that he'd sent his keys to Gumshoe and advised him that he could stay in the apartment as a live-in housekeeper (provided everything was kept tidy enough so that he could come home any day and be satisfied) was almost suggesting that he knew he wouldn't be returning to America for awhile.

  
"Phoenix Wright and I haven't seen one another for years."

Franziska raised her eyebrows then, just for a second, before her expression morphed back into the usual knowing smirk she wore when she wasn't looking disaffected and bored-- or terrifying. 

"But you have returned to America, little brother." The change in her voice was subtle but Miles recognised it; it was surprise.

"I never saw him."

"Did you never see him?" Franziska asked slowly-- "Or did you never look for him?"

 _I stayed away from that end of town._  Memories of the visits to the States were vague and usually clouded with jetlag and memories of the work which had overshadowed all else. He could have stayed longer if he'd wished, but something; the desire to be out of the heat, he argued, the need to be back in Europe, the consideration of furthering his study--  _something_  got in the way of him seeing Wright again.

"Go back to America, Miles Edgeworth," Franziska said softly.

Miles looked at her, suspicious. He'd known Franziska since they were children; concern from her was rare if at all existent. She did  _not_  ask him to do things like this for his benefit." _Why_?" Pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose, he focused his gaze upon her. "Would you prefer me to be out of the way for some reason or another?" He studied her face carefully. "Do you want me gone so you can be Europe's best-known legal mind?"

She arched an eyebrow and stretched her hands in front of her. "I gave up competing with you, Miles Edgeworth, when I realised that it became boring beating you." She sighed. "I'm out of your league and you know it." She jerked her wrist, flicking the whip slightly but not quite meeting him. "It's been nearly a decade since Papa died, and I remember you feeling a foolish sense of shame that you were not there for me when he was executed, but...  _really_." She blinked. "If you are remaining in Europe out of a misguided sense of helping me, you do not need to. It is a perfectly foolish notion: I am quite accustomed to taking care of myself as you are well aware."

Miles blinked again. He'd used that as an excuse before, staying in close vicinity to Franziska-- but now that she wasn't just giving him permission to leave, that she was  _asking_  him to, it changed the situation.

"You were happier over there," she said with brutal force and frustration which sounded angry rather than concerned. "I know you, Miles Edgeworth. You need to go back to America and find whatever closure you need there before you try to establish yourself  _anywhere_."

He stretched on the leather sofa. The worst of it all was that she'd completely beaten him once more-- even though it didn't look like any kind of competition, her intelligence triumphed over his own. "You're right," he said softly.

"I  _know_." The sparkle came back into her eyes and her voice, and she was back to normal, there was no attempt at sibling sensitivity from her, no awkward affection, just logic and foolishness and things that were right, namely her observations.

When he left her apartment half an hour later, he thought about that card in his pocket in the jacket that he never wore any more. The one he'd been too sentimental to throw away.

 

 

It takes him days to find the card in the suit pocket, amongst the satin of a suit worn by someone else, someone younger and less vulnerable and less...

Is he only thinking about contacting Wright because he's scared of growing old? Or is it because he's wanting some proof that he was right all along, that he knew Wright better than he knew himself, that Wright wouldn't and couldn't-- and shouldn't have been expected to wait indefinitely.

He could feel something uneasy in the back of is throat when he realised that since Franziska had mentioned it, it was as though his brain had been given permission to think of Wright; and that's all he  _could_  think of. He was giddy and twitching and distracted, people noticed the spring in his step at work and he wondered if Franziska's rumour mill had a perfectly incorrect impression of why he was in such a good mood.

The good mood was intoxicating and embarrassing and perfectly undignified. Perhaps he'd grown older and relaxed a little, maybe his body had decided to mellow out a bit as the mind had-- nonetheless, he was still Miles Edgeworth and still perfectly in control of himself, thankyouverymuch.

He'd lost interest in random pickups, those boys who never looked quite right, who he couldn't be too picky about yet couldn't help but be too picky about. He supposed that was good for his dignity-- at least the rumours might cease and he could keep his dirty little secrets well-guarded in the deepest vaults of his own mind.

It was strangely exciting, and perfectly terrifying to realise that he actually wanted Wright to have waited. Oh, it was cruel and unfair, but he could imagine Wright  _doing that_ , his committment to justice and the truth, his big-hearted friendship and honesty and...

He found himself wondering how it had been for him. If he'd been lonely; wondering if he'd sought to sate his needs with lookalikes and other professional career men, or if he'd just switched off. Had Wright felt the same level of sick self-loathing, waking up next to strangers and hardly remembering the night before, irritated that no matter what, that day at the airport was burned into his memory? 

How had Wright dealt with it? 

 _Had_  he dealt with it? 

It was unfair, Miles thought, the proposal Wright had made, to wait indefinitely, and because he was honest and willing to do anything for people he cared about, it was just taken that he  _would_. Miles wished  _he'd_  offered something, even some sort of clause or a loophole or disclaimer; something Wright could use to escape the situation, to remedy the loneliness.

This was why he liked the law, why contracts were such a good idea. People understood fine print even if they chose to ignore it, no one got left  _hanging_.

  
He hated himself in that moment, for his unintentional cruelty and his stupidity. Digging his hand into the pocket, he wondered if he'd always known  _somewhere_  inside him that Phoenix Wright was going to be an important feature in his life. 

It was time to settle down, he'd realised seven years too late. He had his career, his success, his properties and his jet-setting lifestyle; he wanted a familiar and kind face to wake up to, to be genuinely loved by someone who-- oh god.

Phoenix  _had_  genuinely loved him. 

It should have been obvious, he should have realised this before; maybe if he had he'd have stupidly turned around before he was ready for commitment, and when he was prone to mess things up somehow. Maybe this was for the best. 

He felt his fingertips brush the sharp corner of the card as he rummaged through the closet. He never recalled placing Wright's card inside his suit, in the pocket near his heart-- how ridiculously, disgustingly sentimental, he thought with a nervous and childlike grin, but he'd always known it was there. 

An interesting metaphor.

Plucking it from the coat, he stared at it for a long time before walking though to the living room. He ran a finger over blue embossed lettering:  _Phoenix Wright, Attorney at Law_. He'd handed those damn cards out to everyone after he'd had the first batch made up; he was like a greenhorn flashing his badge to one and all, with that permanently naive and childlike sense of achievement about having arrived in the adult world-- with business cards in ink colours which matched his suit. He always liked the simple things and he always had such and  _optimistic_  sense about things.

It had taken Wright a matter of  _years_  to get through to him, to make him realise that he  _did_  sincerely care for him-- strangely enough the last seven of those years were spent alone; he'd had to figure out that puzzle, contend with his worst enemy-- himself-- to find out what he needed to do in order to make everything right.

He was met with obstacles; with the optimism he had powering him, with his Wright-inspired enthusiasm-- he could do anything, face the obstacles, overcome them, return a hero in his mind, saved by the power of love.

  
It was ironic how silly we was being, how nauseatingly undignified it all was.

He would calm down, and he knew it. When he'd see Wright, things would change.

He remembered the stupidly sentimental suggestion Wright had made, his plea. 

He was going to ring Phoenix Wright and tell him to meet him at People Park.

And that he was sorry for making him wait so long. 

His fingers shook as though he was shivering as he pressed the numbers into the phone, careful, of course, to remember the international codes prior to the office number.

Seven years: what had changed? What did Wright's voice sound like? What was he going to sound like when he realised who was calling?

The phone rang twice and he shifted. He sat down in the arm chair next to the side table, anticipating and hoping for a beautifully long phone conversation, to apologise, to find out what Wright need for him to make everything better.

He thought of when he'd had to acquire a flight to America on last minute notice, when he'd decided to come back because he was the only one who could help Wright-- why, oh  _god_  had it taken another seven years to realise this--?

There was less than a second's silence, and a perky young female voice answered the phone. "Good afternoon!" 

Suddenly he tensed; this was  _wrong_. It wasn't Maya's voice, and he'd assumed that Maya was going to be based out of Kurain for a while anyway, to complete her training and organise what needed to be organised there.

"Hello?" he asked tentatively. He was still shaking now, but it felt different.

"Welcome to the Write Anything Agency-- how can I help you today?" Whoever the girl on the phone was, she sounded professional; cheerful and perky and friendly. But Miles didn't  _want_  that; he wanted to know what had happened to the other kind of Wright, the  _Wright_  who'd been in that very office--

Feeling his rage and a stinging sense of the unfairness creeping up on him, he snapped tersely into the mouthpiece. "Is there some sort of ...agency in the office now?" he asked. "Or have I gotten a wrong number?"

"You've always called the  _right_  number when you ring the Write Anything Agency," the young woman chirped on the phone.

"No... no... did this-- this used to be a law office, didn't it?"

"Yes, we have lawyers, sir," the girl told him. "If you need talent--"

"I've called the office of an agent for... writers, haven't I?" He could feel his hand moving to his face, the heel of it pressing in harshly against his cheekbone.

"Yes, we represent writers if you want, sir-- are  _you_  a writer? What can I help you with?"

He replaced the phone into the cradle. He'd been so close, and something had happened.

 

Sweet romantic notions and a new understanding of the world had changed to blood-curling concern. Something had happened to Wright, something had happened to the  _office_. He had no idea what to do; the best bet was to speak to Gumshoe and ask if he had any leads-- hell, he'd pay for him to exclusively work for him, to find out what was happening in the life of Phoenix Wright now, where he was, what had taken the office from him...

He mentally cursed himself for his stupidity, and for being too late.

 

 


	3. Search

He didn't give up, however. 

By the end of the following day, he'd booked his flight back to America, determined to do what Wright had done so long ago-- he was going to  _find_  him, to  _say something_ , to apologise, at the very least. 

He thought about the time not long after he'd disappeared after leaving the note-- he was younger then, and overwhelmed by too many horrors in such a short space of time. Everything had been changed and destroyed, back then-- the man who he'd called a mentor and a father figure was due to be executed after having betrayed him and having killed his own father, his near-perfect record was in tatters-- and he constantly asked himself if he'd only tried harder, been more ruthless, built tighter cases-- would Manfred have forgiven him and spared him the pain of the truth? 

He hadn't known if he'd wanted the truth: he rocked backwards and forwards on that one. On one hand, a name had been cleared, he could sleep without the nightmares, justice was served and he wasn't a killer; on good days, this was enough and he felt strong. On the bad days, he wasn't so sure; ignorance truly  _had_  been bliss, and he cursed himself for failing Manfred and causing him to throw him to the wolves like that, stupid and desperate as it was. If he'd never  _known_  the truth, it couldn't hurt him; he'd still have his mentor, Franziska's father would still be alive, he wouldn't have been forced to confront certain things such as his then-discovered  _aloneness_. 

Others had real family, others had mentors. Wright didn't have a mentor, but he had parents, Miles supposed, and he had his strange little mismatched collection of friends-- because Wright was like that; people liked Wright and he liked people in his own funny way. Wright was good at socialising and working with others, whereas he'd always felt... stunted and formal and cool, without meaning to be. It had been perfect for a von Karma, but that trial had taught him that no matter what he did, he'd never be one. And deep down, a part of him wasn't sure if he'd wanted to be.

And then there was Wright: Wright had planted himself into his life and he'd been avoiding the man, avoiding any distractions and he'd reached out to him and...

He'd been young and naive and frantic, and his identity was in tatters. He was no longer Miles Edgeworth, perfect prosecutor, disciple of Manfred von Karma, he was a failure, an orphan-- suddenly he had a world of freedom in front of him and he wanted none of it.

He'd left America intending to die, leaving the note only as warning to one and all:  _don't go looking for me_. It had been his decency towards everyone, towards the office and the people he knew, and to Wright himself-- if Wright had spent fifteen years looking for him, it was possible he could spend another fifteen doing so. And it wasn't  _fair_.

It was ironic, then, that he'd been the one to come through for Wright; that flight back Germany-- and then on to Borginia, and then back to Germany, his work oveseas, has somehow restored enough of his self-esteem for him to realise that he had an identity beyond The Demon Prosecutor-- he was  _Miles Edgeworth_ , a very good but not perfect-- but wasn't perfection just an unattainable goal anyway?-- prosecutor, a man of the law and of justice and truth and due process, he was Franziska's "Little Brother," and he was... someone who cared about Phoenix Wright enough to fly back to America to assist him.

Even if Wright would never appreciate him the way he did, even if they weren't good for one another, even if they fought and debated and could barely see eye to eye on things; he'd looked into himself somewhere and been confronted with the truth of what he was: now nearly a decade later, he was doing the same thing.

He remembered Wright in the hospital bed, remembered Larry's frantic and incoherent phone call and he'd had a doubtful moment where he wondered if fate had spared the other man for some higher purpose. Which was stupid and superstitious, he knew, but he could never entirely reject the thought, especially after that case had involved him playing at being a defense attorney, exorcisms and spirit mediums, and a strange nine-shaped stone which allowed one to see locks over someone's heart.

Stranger, more impossible things only happened less than a week later...

 

  
He attempted sleep on the plane, his plans simple-- Gumshoe would know where Wright was, he suspected; while Gumshoe hadn't mentioned him, he was still a detective and even if he had to pay dearly, Miles knew he could find out where his former friend and rival and lover was courtesy of his partner from the DPP. He'd caught up with Gumshoe only a handful of times over the past seven years, he'd spoken to him even less on the phone-- usually it was Gumshoe remembering some sort of holiday or supposed cause for celebration, a birthday or somesuch. 

He would have felt guilty, had Gumshoe not been living in his home rent-free for a few years, and he would have made more of an effort had he not been as busy. He supposed they could catch up now-- Gumshoe was a man of few words-- every so often he'd give his insight-- usually at the wrong time-- about things, but it wasn't like the detective had much to discuss with him anyway. There was his concern, which made him feel awkward, and he wondered just  _how_  he was going to respond to a request for information on Wright.

Not that he minded; he could deal with that when he'd touched down.

In his excitement, he couldn't sleep: he watched the in-flight movie, some perfectly banal and unmemorable romantic comedy, boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy meets girl again years down the track, happy ending.

Sentimental and stupid as it was, he couldn't help but smile. For the third time, he was crossing continents for Wright. And finally, he could tell him the truth it had taken too long to realise.

 

 

Gumshoe had come through for him. 

It was a simple matter of phoning his apartment and waiting-- it was after six by the time he'd arrived in his old neighbourhood, and jet-lagged and exhausted, yet still hopeful and undeterred from his mission, he rang the detective.

"Mister Edgeworth?"

His excitement got in the way for the need for small talk, even though he could hear the enthusiasm in Gumshoe's voice. "I didn't expect to hear from you-- how's Germany? Or are you in Borginia now? Or Cohdopia? Or..."

"I'm back home." His answer was final and clipped. 

"Great-- when did you get in?-- when are you stopping by? I've only been sleeping in the guest room but I can remake the bed for you so it's..." 

He smiled, but couldn't stay smiling for too long-- he had business to attend to. 

"I appreciate the effort you've gone to to maintain my apartment," he told him, "But that won't be necessary."

"Where are you staying, then? I can grab a squad car and pick you up--"

"No need." Gumshoe seemed to have forgotten, in a few years, about the fact that he  _had_  a car of his own, and that cabs sufficed for him in emergencies. "I'm calling to ask a quick favour, that's all."

He hadn't thought about the logistics of where he'd be staying; he'd walk into a hotel close to where Wright was, he assumed. He'd pay for the best suite he could get, and hopefully-- if Wright was in the mood for discussion-- and if he wasn't, he could understand and at least  _try_  to rebuild... something-- as much as he didn't want to think about that possibility-- 

"Anything you need, sir." He could practically see Gumshoe beaming at him and felt remotely guilty. Once he'd sorted out the mess with Wright, he promised himself, he'd see to Gumshoe, take him out for a nice meal-- 

"I'm wondering if you have Phoenix Wright's mobile phone number."

"Sure do, sir." There was a pause on the end of the line. "I haven't seen him in awhile and you know what those crazy well-to-do types are doing with buying new model phones all the time and all-- but-- here's the last one I got for him." He reeled off a string of numbers, and Miles felt his wrist shaking as he wrote them down awkwardly on the back of a business card.

"Thankyou."

"Since you're home and all-- we have some catching up to do! Do you want to go out for dinner-- I still can't afford anything flash, but since I haven't been paying much in the way of rent, I could fix you up something nice over here, or..."

He smiled. "I'd enjoy that very much," he said. "But tonight..." He wasn't sure what to say. His own voice was full of a tired enthusiasm, and Gumshoe's kindness was so exuberant, so  _pleased_  that he didn't want to let him down. "I'm going to find a room and sleep." 

"Oh-- okay, sir. I'll talk to you later, I guess?"

"Definitely." He snapped his phone shut, and then, from the same very bench in People Park where they'd sat seven years ago, dialled the number he'd been given.


	4. Changed

He expected, pessimistically, for the phone to be disconnected, as Gumshoe had suggested, or to get a message service. But two rings in, and there was his voice; surprised, older, and more placid-- "Phoenix Wright speaking."

He'd obviously seen the number before answering it. Miles felt his heart skip a beat-- in all those years, he'd kept his number on his telephone...

"Hello--  _Wright_?" Time stopped in that moment.

"I've come back home." He was excited but sounded humbled, that Wright hadn't slammed the phone down was a good sign, that he sounded just as stunned as he did was... surreal.

"Where are you now, Wright? I tried calling the office, but it seems you're no longer there."

And then there was the hesitation in his voice. "I still am," he admitted. "There have just been... a lot's happened in seven years." His voice picked up, though, excited. "Where are  _you_?"

"Not too far away," he said, unable to control the smile breaking out on his face in spite of the worrying  _changes_  which he might be faced with-- what had happened? Had Wright had to sub-let the office to a publishing agency?-- was he  _all right_? Why wasn't he scrambling for last-minute evidence for a case tomorrow?-- "I'm sitting on the bench in People Park."

 

There wasn't even a pause. He'd expected a pause, even though in hindsight he wasn't sure  _why_ \-- perhaps that silly romantic comedy had addled his brain on the flight and given him strange ideas-- 

"People Park?" Wright sounded confused. "What are you doing there?" He chuckled, and that was the first warning sign Miles had. Perhaps Wright had forgotten; he sounded more laid back, as though age was catching up with him, perhaps-- "So... where are you staying right now? Gatewater?"

"I was planning on it," he said, perhaps slightly suggestively. 

"It's expanded a lot in the last ten years." 

Miles nodded. 

"So-- do you want me to come down and pick you up-- I can show you the new set of wheels I got-- or you can walk if you're feeling athletic." He chuckled again, and Miles smiled to himself.  _A new set of wheels_.

"I'll see the new set of wheels," he said with a smile of his own. "I did wonder when you'd upgrade the bike, Wright."

"I see you haven't lost your propensity for making jokes at my expense." Wright laughed again. "Okay," he said. "I'll see you in five."

And that was it.

 

The night air had a chill to it, there was a beautiful sunset in front of him, he noticed. Not a great deal had changed in the surrounds of their neighbourhood in seven years, and tonight it was backlit with a vibrant luminous peach shade, with blue creeping through at the edges. Night was falling; he wondered if Wright had eaten yet-- probably not-- and mentally cursed himself for not having looked at the local eateries in his excitement to finally see him again. 

He craned his neck, looking out for the shimmer of rapidly-spinning spokes and then Wright's spiky-haired silhouette whizzing by in the twilight. He wondered about the new bike, what Wright had chosen, what had compelled him to do away with the other bike, which he'd always argued was "perfectly good." 

A car approached from the side of the park, a dark, expensive-looking vehicle. The fact that it was driving slowly, and how it blended into the darkness-- unnerved him; had People Park become a place for high-ranking gangsters and drug-dealers?

When the horn blared, he jumped from the seat and stared. It was only when the window rolled down and he heard the voice-- "Hey, Edgeworth!"-- that he smiled and rushed-- maybe a bit too hurriedly-- towards it.

The door opened and-- yes, it was Phoenix Wright-- stepped out. It was Wright, but it wasn't, just like the office seemed to be Wright's but it wasn't. Evidently he'd changed after work now; he was dressed in a dark grey tracksuit top with a hood, and the hair had been slicked back and hidden underneath a turquoise beanie.

But it was  _him_  all the same; he'd lost some weight, he sported two-day growth and without the trademark hairstyle he looked remarkably different-- but the intelligent, kind blue eyes smiled back into his, and he opened his arms for a hug.

Miles wasn't a hugger. Even when he was seeking physical release, he avoided physical intimacy as much as he could; there was very little touching when he initiated interest in someone, and almost nothing in the way of foreplay, and as a number of bedmates had complained afterwards, "You're not one for cuddling afterwards." He recalled observations of Wright's years ago that he wasn't really physically demonstrative, but Wright had always accepted that, had always taken the little that he could offer and he seemed to appreciate it for what it was.

But this was different.

"Trying to disguise yourself, are you?" he asked with a wry smile as he felt himself clinging to the other man, arms around him, embracing him. His head instinctively met that crook between neck and now-bony collarbone, and he longed to ask what had happened to him, but for the moment, he didn't care. He was back with Phoenix Wright, they'd met in People Park as Wright always said he would-- even if he didn't remember that, Miles thought affectionately-- explanations could come later.

Under the beautiful sunset which Wright hadn't even noticed, they were tightly embraced, a sob came from somewhere deep in his chest, and everything, for the first time in seven years, was right in the world. 

He'd come home at last.

 

It was a silly and romantic thought to feel that he could have "stayed like that forever" but in hindsight, he found himself wishing it were possible.

Wright's arms still had their strength from years ago, if not more; his grip was tight and solid, holding him there, as though he had all the time in the world.

Miles hadn't noticed the purr of the car's engine behind them--  _Car? Since when could he drive, anyway?_ \-- but Wright had. He was the one to break the embrace; he pulled back and smiled at him. "I guess some introductions are in order," he said.

 _Just like Wright to do something ridiculous like give his car a name_ , he thought warmly, and smiled, surprised when Wright opened the door behind him again to reveal a woman behind the tinted window whom he'd failed to notice.

 

  
Who  _was_  this? A new assistant in the office? A relative?-- he'd not remembered Wright having relatives-- "Edgeworth, meet my wife, Thalassa."

And that was when the world shattered. 

 

She looked at him, a slight smile on her face, small and demure as she seemed to be. She had intense eyes and clear, milky skin, a beautiful face and soft-looking chestnut hair tied into two braids on either side of her face. Gorgeous, in a girl next door sort of way. And she looked strangely familiar.

And he wanted to ask if Wright was joking, because Wright did have an odd sense of humour, but something about the appearance of this woman suggested that he wasn't joking. She looked too old and too dignified for  _jokes_  like that-- perhaps if she'd been barely out of college and Wright had smiled a bit more devillishly, it would have been funny.

"Wh--why didn't you tell me?" he asked, forcing himself to smile and extend a hand to Thalassa. "Miles Edgeworth." He shook her hand; she had delicate, perfect television-commercial hands which should have sold handcream or needed the protection of rubber gloves from harsh dishwashing chemicals. Not that Miles could imagine her doing anything as mundane as housework; she had a close to regal air to her.

But she smiled warmly, shaking his hand back-- "Thalassa Gramarye," she introduced herself-- "Nick's told me a bit about you." There was an oddly  _persistent_  smile on her face now, one which made Miles wonder just  _how much_  Wright had told him. "It's lovely to finally meet you."

"Jump in the back," Wright said as he sat back down on the seat and reached for the door handle-- "I'll show you my driving skills and what's happened to the office." 

As Miles opened the door, he heard a young, female shriek. "Hi!" 

He jumped back at the sight of the teenager sitting next to where he was expected to seat himself in the back seat. "I'm--"

"And this is Trucy, our daughter." Closing the door behind him, Phoenix fastened his seat belt and waited for Miles to enter the car, but all he could do was blink. Trucy beamed at him-- she did resemble her mother, but those big blue eyes--  _Since when did Wright have a teenage daughter, anyway?_  He waved uncomfortably to her and sat down, closing the door behind him. Wright would have been... in his early twenties or late teens-- had he  _known_  Thalassa before they'd reunited in court? 

He felt a twinge of jealousy at the completely absurd idea that Wright might have done something as life-changing as fathered a child and not mentioned it to him. They were  _friends_ , at least, and he hadn't mentioned it?--

Wright started the car.

"So you're one of daddy's friends, are you?" Trucy asked. "Daddy has a lot of old friends but he doesn't see them very much any more." From her side of the back seat, she eyed him carefully, and then perked up, speaking to her father. "And wow, daddy-- he's  _handsome_."

Wright didn't chuckle. "Trucy," he said warningly, "He's too old for you, and he's..." And that was when Wright became more interested in the traffic for a moment. "Not interested in girls your age, as he shouldn't be."

"Actually, I'm not particularly interested in girls of any age," he said, embarrassed and stunned at his statement, which was probably one of the less surreal things occurring right now, but offering Trucy a slight smile. She grinned back at him like an over-exuberant puppy, as though something had just dawned upon her.

"So are you going to be my new daddy?" she asked.

The adults in the car laughed uncomfortably, and Trucy looked hurt for a moment. "I'm just visiting for a short while," Miles explained, though he'd never decided how long. He'd hoped that a visit would stretch out to a  _forever_  but it had taken seven years and less than five minutes for all that to change again.

"I just thought," Trucy said-- "I've  _always_  had two daddies, haven't I, mommy? Because when I was a baby, there was daddy and Uncle Valant, and then when everything happened and daddy disappeared, he was still my daddy but so was  _Daddy_ \-- and now--" 

Miles could make neither head nor tale of her logic, and Wright laughed once more. "No, sweetie," he said. "Edgeworth is just a...  _friend_." There was some hesitation in the last word, Miles noticed, and some part of him was almost grateful to Trucy for saying what she just had. A bitterness at the  _unfairness_  of all this made him want to see Wright  _squirm_ , awful and childish as he felt.

And the way Trucy looked at him, it was as though she had some sort of insight about who he really was; did Wright have many  _other_  old friends whom Trucy suggested were going to be her new daddies? She seemed naive, but  _sharp_ , in the same way that Wright was; beneath the cute quirkiness, there was a perceptive and observant mind which could make devastatingly inconvenient realisations. If she was anything like her father, she'd be one to watch.

"So," he asked nervously, desperate to change the subject and to shift Trucy's inquisitive gaze-- "Care to tell me when all this came about?" He smiled falsely, with an overly-peppy sounding voice which he assumed the young girl next to him was aware of. He purposely avoided looking at her face and glanced towards Wright's seat in front of him instead.

"It's a long story," Wright began, "But it starts about uh, seven or eight years ago...  _oh_." He stopped himself, and turned around to face Miles. "You think things have changed-- I didn't tell you the big change which used to be at the centre of all this-- but which has become kind of-- not." He wrinkled his nose in that way he did when he was about to realise that he was going to meet an unpleasant rebuttal in court. "I'm no longer a licensed attorney."

 _But that was what he_ was. Phoenix Wright was probably the best damned defense attorney in the state, if not the country, and his most formidable opponent in the courtroom. Wright's being an attorney had made him search within himself for answers about his own identity-- it was an integral part of him, and from the way Wright was sounding so casually blase about it, it was as though he'd somehow lost his badge  _voluntarily._

Miles could feel himself turn to lead at the statement and was lost, unsure what to say. In all of the changes, that had occurred, this had obviously been the cruelest and harshest, and he felt a myriad of questions bubble in his head. What had made Phoenix stop being a lawyer? Was it the woman in the passenger seat? A petty side of him wanted it to be her, because then he'd have justifiable reason to dislike her, unfair as he knew that was. 

"What happened?" he asked slowly-- "What-- why didn't you tell me you were wanting to--"

"I didn't want to," Wright said. "But over the years I've realised that it probably doesn't bother me as much as it used to." Miles could see his awkward smile reflected in the rearview mirror. "I can't entirely hate what happened, because everything that came out of it is my life right now... and--" the enthusiasm crept back into his voice-- "I'm more than happy right now."

Miles could feel himself tense on the seat. He hated himself for knowing that any other situation would have potentially been less shattering; a damaged Wright living in misery could be taken care of; a heartbroken Wright could have been reasoned with, perhaps; a poverty-stricken out-of-work Wright could be looked after financially. A disbarred-- what had  _happened?_ \-- Wright could be fought for, in the same way Wright had fought so hard, he'd said that time a decade ago-- for  _him_.

A Wright who'd forgotten him was... gone.

 

 

 

He was surprised when they pulled up outside the office. 

"Isn't this...?" he started asking, and Trucy filled him in. 

"Since Daddy stopped being a lawyer, we needed an income, so now we have the Wright Anything Agency."

And  _that_  was when the penny dropped--  _Wright_ \-- not  _Write_. He wanted to laugh at his stupidity, in assuming that everything had changed-- "Why are we heading back here?"

It was Thalassa who answered his question. "I bought a house not far away from here," she said. Her voice was soft and kind and pleasant; Miles vaguely wondered if she'd had professional training-- "It's currently being renovated-- so we're all back in the office for awhile."

The thought of living in an office was peculiar to Miles.

"We were living there before," Trucy said brightly. "Though back then it was just Daddy and me-- now Mommy's with us so she and Daddy share one bedroom and Polly practically lives in the study anyway, and I'm in--" she giggled-- "a closet." 

Miles nodded, taking it all in.

"It's okay, though, it's a converted closet-- I have a bed that comes out from the wall, and I've been using my Magic Panties for storage."

Wright laughed as they opened their doors and he saw the look on Miles' face; utter bewilderment as though the world had gone mad. Perhaps it had; he'd been gone for seven years and suddenly it was like slipping into a parallel universe of some sort-- where nothing made sense.

"Trucy's a magician," he said. "And sweetie-- that's the most creative use of a stage prop I've ever heard of." 

She shrugged, and Wright nudged him. " _Nothing_  gets past her," he said quietly, still smiling, as they walked to the door.

  
As he wasn't expecting to see the office converted into living quarters housing four, he also wasn't prepared for the level of  _clutter_  surrounding them. Miles liked his life tidy, orderly-- and his surroundings to be the same. The front area; part office which seemed to hold all manner of oddments from their lives-- there was now no question that Trucy  _was_  a magician, given what looked like stage props filling the room-- but there were also books, framed photographs, and a sleek-looking piano by the far wall. Amongst the whole mess, plopped in the middle, were two sofas Miles recognised from when the office had been the Wright and Co. Law Offices, and a glass coffee table had been added to give the space some sort of semblance to a regular living room.

"I wonder where Apollo is," Wright commented as they stepped inside, and Miles took in all the changes before him. His eyes moved from the remnants of Wright's life as a lawyer-- the shelves of law books-- to the strange split box serving as shelving next to the piano. 

"Polly!" Trucy called out, and for a moment, Miles had a vague suspicion that she wasn't calling out to someone human, but a pet of some kind. Maybe three people-- and a bird-- or a cat--  _could_  live in here comfortably, he thought to himself, but when a young man in a red suit appeared from behind a curtain over the other end of the room, he blinked once again.

At least  _he_  seemed somewhat confused, and he walked up to them, said a brief hello, and extended his hand to Miles. "Apollo Justice," he said-- "You're-- Mister Wright's old friend, aren't you?" There was something  _odd_ in the way he said  _old friend_ , but Miles thought nothing of it. The entire situation was perfectly surreal.

"Miles Edgeworth," he said with a nod.

"The prosecutor, right?-- I remember seeing you on TV when I was a kid."

Miles smiled wryly. He only  _looked_  young himself. "It wasn't  _that_  long ago," he said. "I've just been abroad for several years."

"I started my training just before the Hazakura incident," Justice said quietly. "I was only fifteen, but I'd grown up wanting to be a lawyer... I used to skip school and stay at home so I could watch the big cases." He grinned devilishly. "I remember you." His cheeks flushed slightly, and he looked at the floor. "You were... very good." 

"Thankyou."

 

There was another awkward silence. "How long are you staying for, Mr. Edgeworth?" Trucy bounced around him. "If you're going to be here for a few nights at least, you can catch one of my shows at the Wonder Bar-- and you can hear daddy play the piano at the Borscht Bowl..." The excitement was rising in her voice again. 

Miles nodded, looking from Apollo to Trucy and back again. 

Part of him wanted to turn around and run; of everything he'd expected to see here, this was the last. Another part of him was morbidly curious, he realised, as Thalassa and Wright moved towards what seemed to be serving as the kitchenette for the time being; he'd seen Wright's new family, but still couldn't quite fit together the pieces. The inquisitive prosecutor in him wanted to find out the truth. The masochistic romantic needed confirmation that all  _was_  right here, because if it wasn't, he was going to  _make_  it right, he promised himself. The rest of him longed to flee, to head back to the world he knew and understood and which had its share of surprises which were so much more tolerable in comparison.

And then there was Apollo, still looking at him curiously and smiling. "Are you having dinner with us, Mr. Edgeworth?" he asked.

Perhaps if one of the  _adults_ \-- he still wasn't sure how old Apollo was, in his bewilderment he'd not done the mental math to calculate his age-- had asked, he could have refused with a shrug and a smile. But he glanced around the apartment and its clutter and the small bar fridge which hardly looked adequate to feed five people-- and the microwave which made him wonder  _what_  they'd been eating since living here-- and then he looked at Wright who seemed intent on clearing a space-- 

"I suppose we could eat out," he said amicably. "You would, of course, have to advise me on the local eateries..."

"Yay!" Trucy grinned at him. He felt as though she was taking a shine to him, and he pushed that thought away. Perceptive as she may have been, Miles felt a dagger twist into his heart, and wondered if the reason he was being so warm was to counteract his own shock at Wright's new situation. 

"I-- I don't mind paying--" he quickly added.

"Did you hear that?" Trucy jumped up. "Mr. Edgeworth said he'll  _pay_!" 

Wright shot her an unimpressed look, and in that moment, Miles found himself wondering just  _how_  they'd lived for the past seven years. He chuckled. "If it's all right with you...?"

Thalassa smiled at him. "I think it sounds lovely," she said. She approached Phoenix and touched him delicately on the arm. "A nice evening out with everyone and Mr. Edgeworth." Miles could detect a nervousness in her smile as she glanced at him. "I suppose there's a lot that's still a complete mystery to you," she said kindly. "And having heard so much about you, I'd love to hear your story, also." 

He smiled-- too much, he thought, but he had to respond with something; Thalassa made him uneasy and he wasn't sure why entirely-- a combination of factors most likely; what did she know and  _how much_?-- was her apparent calm just masking nerves as weak as his?-- and if she  _knew_  what had happened, what did she  _really_  think of him?

All the while, as she dashed to the bathroom to freshen up and as Wright disappeared to what must have been  _their_  room-- and he hated himself for the pang of jealousy at wondering what  _they_  might have  _done in there_ \-- he felt a sense of sinking into something. He couldn't just back out now; from all appearances, Trucy seemed to like him, and appeared positively enthusiastic about his appearance, Apollo seemed awkwardly shy, Thalassa was coolly polite-- though he  _wondered_ \-- and Wright himself was...  _odd_. He wondered if he shared the same sort of shock and surprise as he did. 

Maybe returning hadn't been fair, he considered as they drove through the outskirts of the city and Trucy pointed out landmarks ("There's the magic shop-- I really should get a discount there because I'm a frequent customer!" "There's that shop which sells rock posters-- Daddy says that place smells like his old friend Larry...") and Apollo consulted a street directory for restaurant locations. Everyone else seemed so organised, so happy. 

Maybe he should have just let sleeping dogs lie.


	5. Connection

He warmed to Apollo over dinner.

Trucy was sweet; effervescent and perky and funny and good-natured, practical and fun and bright. Thalassa was the epitome of grace; she did not so much walk as  _glide_ , Miles felt, as he watched her take her seat at the table. She wore the face of someone well-acquainted with tranquilizers though there was a brightness revealed in her eyes when she spoke or smiled, suggesting that the state wasn't drugged but perfectly natural. Nothing could faze her or shift her beauty, and he was --unfairly, he realised-- bothered by that. 

People told him he was cold and guarded, yet he felt transparent, his emotional state rose to the surface of his skin whether he wanted it to or not. Thalassa wasn't cold, but she was guarded. He wanted that apparent warmth and he wanted that ability to appear unaffected. And he wanted--

Wright sat down next to her and smiled. "I think this is the first night we've had out like this in..." And when his voice trailed off and he couldn't remember, Apollo spoke up.

"It's been about six months," he said, "but the last place was a Pizza Barn."

And everyone laughed but Miles, who smirked, glancing over at Apollo instead. He felt guilty and embarrassed when the younger man looked away from him and blushed, but the shyness was... something he could understand. He recalled situations where Manfred would invite friends to the house, or he'd be taken into the office and there would be a few squirming moments where he would meet a distinguished colleague of his mentor's, and he never quite knew what to say or where to look.

He looked at Wright instead, casually, eliciting a look and a slightly raised eyebrow from Thalassa who turned back to the wine list they were glancing over.

"I've never heard of any of these," Wright said, wrinkling his nose. "They sound  _imported_." And Miles wasn't sure if there was any mockery in his voice then, if it was somehow a stab at him, that of course  _he'd_  know, with his expensive tastes and wads of cash and the jet setting lifestyle. Money and knowledge of wine regions wasn't going to offer any comfort, he thought to himself as Wright passed the menu over to him. "Maybe you should do the honors."

Looking over the list, he realised that he didn't recognise any of the wines either; living abroad had spoiled him. He made a quick selection and passed the menu back to Wright. 

He hadn't considered the idea of taking Wright--  _with family_  out to dinner. Family was practically a foreign concept to him; he hadn't given thought to the idea that Phoenix might now have one, so complete and so  _established_. He still hadn't worked out the specifics, where everyone had fitted in and how they'd managed to  _become_  a family; Trucy had mentioned something about having several daddies earlier, and he was curious but didn't wish to pry. The ages didn't quite add up to him, nor did they explain where Apollo came from.

The explanation unfolded over dinner, choppy and surreal, with input from everyone-- everyone except him. He sipped his wine and ate, the horrible irony occurring to him: everything happened because of that case where Wright had been set up and disbarred.

He hadn't even called to see what Wright was doing at the time. It was-- he did the mental calculation-- about two months after he'd left. After the entire Amano case; the most hectic few days of his life, it had seemed back then. He hadn't forgotten him at all. He'd been distracted by the cases he was working on, and then contemplating the fact that yet another trusted person in his world-- two people, if he included Amano's son-- were as corrupt as others he'd had faith in. 

And he didn't know what to say to Wright. In fairness,  _he_  hadn't contacted  _him_ , either, and he'd never offered an explanation. 

And it didn't seem fitting or fair right now to  _ask_  him why he hadn't done that: he was painfully aware of the idea that his family knew they'd come into one another's lives because of that case; asking why he couldn't have called for help seemed bitter and resentful of what had occurred because of it.

Apollo had remained quiet throughout most of the discussion; Thalassa had spoken of touring Europe, of her time in Borginia ("We would have been there at the same time," Miles found himself mentally noting), of being reunited with her children (he was genuinely surprised that Trucy  _wasn't_  Wright's flesh and blood daughter-- the similarities in their appearance and personality were uncanny) and of the case which tied up the loose ends-- but Apollo had said little about his mother and his childhood, or much of anything. He interjected to clarify points, and had mentioned working in the firm of the lawyer who'd masterminded Wright's downfall, but next to Wright-- who was typically open about his experiences, and Thalassa-- who was coy with information but explained the essentials, and Trucy-- who gave her own insight on what it was like for her-- Apollo stayed away from the discussion for the most part.

It was something Miles felt he could almost empathise with. He remembered his own strange formative years once he was living with Manfred-- and then later on, Franziska and Manfred-- he wasn't a von Karma, he wasn't  _perfect_ , he would never quite belong. Was that how Apollo felt? Thalassa and Phoenix had one another, Trucy had been a daughter to them both, whereas Apollo, from Miles' understanding, had no established relationship with either of them, though from appearances, everyone got along.

He felt like an outsider, here, too, a lonely single man peering into his friend's living room window and marvelling at the happy little family inside. 

He didn't reveal much about his own life-- some of it had felt hedonistic at the time, but who wanted to hear about the good life and jet-setting-- or lonely solo drinking sessions and staying up towards dawn and one-night stands-- when there had been a family brought together in those years?

  
Wright drove their beautiful midnight blue car back to the office; Wright hadn't had as much to drink as he had-- Wright didn't drink very much at  _all_. Of course, Trucy had blurted out something about Daddy drinking lots of grape juice in the earlier years, to which Miles raised an eyebrow but didn't comment. If "grape juice" was a family-friendly euphemism, nothing was said about that. In a way, he wished Wright  _had_  said something-- about so many things. If he couldn't have assisted in some fashion, he could have empathised at the very least.

 

 

Post-dinner discussion in the cozy living room had gone way past midnight without any of them realising it.

Trucy had gone to bed, said a friendly goodnight to Miles, and Thalassa, Wright, and Apollo remained seated on the two sofas at opposite ends of the glass coffee table. A strange sort of tension hung in the air, as though there were still too many unspoken words between them, words which could only be revealed in certain company.

"Would you like to stay here for the night?" 

It was Thalassa who offered, and Miles wasn't sure if it was a casual suggestion that everyone head for bed-- "Phoenix didn't tell me where you were staying, so if accommodation is a problem..."

It was a kind gesture, and he wasn't sure if that was all that it was. He longed for a comfortable place to rest, but it was nearly two and he hadn't made arrangements with a hotel. He was slightly tipsy thanks to the wine at dinner, and the subsequent bottle of "grape juice" ("It's from my work; they give me these when they can't pay me overtime") they'd consumed during the stunted discussion in the loungeroom.

He nodded to her. "If I can do so without being a bother..."

"Of course." There was a serene smile from Thalassa and Wright nodded. "I'd say you could sleep in my room, but..." And the two of them chuckled uncomfortably-- at least, Thalassa seemed uncomfortable. Wright's laugh was slightly nervous, as though he wasn't quite sure what he'd just said, someone accidentally making a Freudian slip and worried about the implications.

"I can sleep on the sofa if that's acceptable."

"There's a futon in the study," Wright noted, rubbing his chin thoughtfully; "And there are some spare sheets under the bathroom sink."

"Thankyou." He nodded, realising that the conversation had ended, that everyone  _was_  retiring to bed, and he felt a strange sort of annoyance that he'd managed to evade any one-on-one conversation with Wright.

Or maybe Wright was evading him.

"Why don't you help set it up, Apollo?" 

Apollo nodded, as Wright stretched his arms above his head melodramatically and yawned. 

"I'm glad you came back," Wright said with a smile, "I just wish you'd given us a bit of warning-- I'm just half-asleep right now and..."

Miles nodded. "Likewise," he offered with a slight smile. "And I appreciate your hospitality."

"Thankyou for dinner," he said. It was stumbling, strange conversation, painfully awkward. Perhaps a night to sleep on it would remedy things.

He and Thalassa stood up. "Goodnight, Mr. Edgeworth," she said coolly, smiling slightly, looking almost relieved that Wright was heading off to bed with her.

"It's been wonderful meeting you," he said. His words felt hollow and conflicted; "And thankyou for your hospitality." 

"Goodnight."

They walked towards one of the doors-- presumably not the cupboard that Trucy was calling a bedroom now, leaving Miles to sit and wonder. He regretted not booking the hotel earlier, he realised, now that he was sitting in this strange little living room cluttered with mementos of other people's lives; there was still too much that he didn't understand at the moment, and maybe to leave would have been wiser.

But something desperate and pathetic clung to Wright without him fully realising it; he'd wanted for so long to be in his  _space_  and regard, selfish and foolish as it was now.

"Mr. Edgeworth?"

Apollo emerged from the study. "I might need some help with this futon."

He was grateful for being distracted from his thoughts; he could feel the warm hum of red wine coursing through him, and the slight hint of tipsy, unsatisfied melancholy. Following Justice through to the study, he hoped he'd forget in his sleep.

 

 

The first thing he noticed about Apollo's space was that it seemed to be considerably less cluttered than the rest of the apartment. Granted, it held probably just as many items, but it was  _organised_ ; there was no mess, everything had a rightful place and seemed to be in it. 

"I see you like order," he said. He felt stupid for saying it, he hadn't  _meant_  to, but the lack of conversation between them seemed strange. And Justice's shyness was intriguing. 

"I can't handle too much clutter," he replied. "I suppose working with Mr. Gavin influenced me to keep things tidy..." There was a pang of something in his voice which Miles couldn't quite place. "I was only young then-- I started working with him and getting my apprenticeship when I was fourteen-- and before that..." He stopped talking abruptly. "I guess this is too much information."

Miles smiled slightly, watching as the young man crouched down to reach under the single bed near the window. " _This_  is where the futon Mr. Wri--  _Phoenix_ \-- was talking about is," he said, not sounding terribly pleased. "It's not a bad futon, I was using it in my apartment before I was evicted after--" he stopped himself-- "I just couldn't pay the rent after everything that happened with Mr. Gavin-- I was out of a job and Mr-- _Phoenix_ \-- felt bad for me so I moved in with him for a little while."

"I didn't think you would have been evicted for any nefarious purposes," Miles said. "After all, being a lawyer..."

"I think the neighbours weren't fond of my Chords of Steel training," he said thoughtfully. 

"Your-- what?"

There was a sweet innocence about Apollo, Miles felt. He was somewhat similar to a younger Phoenix, the man whom he'd left at the airport that day eight years ago, there was a clumsiness to him, something slightly serious but not polished and professional just yet. 

"Chords of Steel," he admitted. "Voice training for in the courtroom... I'd offer to demonstrate but everyone else is sleeping." He tugged at the wood frame under the bed.

"How long have you been doing that?" Miles knelt down next to him and looked at the futon, folded and tucked away under the bed.

"Since I was in school," he replied. "I was on the school debate team and the teacher said that I needed to get more confidence with how I used my voice." He stopped again, tugging on the frame. "I've always wanted to be a lawyer."

"So did I," Miles said. "My father was a great lawyer and I suppose I was inspired to stand up for people and for justice because of him."

Giving the futon frame an angry tug, Apollo stopped to look at Miles carefully. "But I thought-- Mr-- Phoenix said..."

"Manfred von Karma  _was_  my mentor," he explained with dignity, "but he took me in after my father's death. It was Gregory whom inspired me to head into law in the first place." There was a wry smile. "I actually wanted to be a defense attorney to begin with."

"So-- why the change?" Apollo was wide-eyed and curious.

"Didn't Mr. Wright tell you?"

"No-- just that you were--" 

For some reason, Miles didn't want to hear the end of that sentence. "Time and influence from my mentor made me what I am today, in a way," he said. "I suppose underneath the horror of his behaviour, I still have him to thank for the opportunities I was afforded and the doors which opened for me as a young lawyer."

Apollo nodded, serious and quiet.

"I sometimes feel like that about Mr. Gavin," he admitted. "Though I'm not saying it's anything like your situation, of course, but..." he trailed off. "I shouldn't say that-- Mr. Gavin killed Trucy's father and ruined Phoenix's life and--"

This wasn't the conversation Miles was expecting to be having with anyone. The memories he'd assumed would be dredged up were memories from seven, eight--  _ten_  years ago, not memories from beyond that.

"I think I understand to a degree," Miles offered. "He was kind to you and you learned a lot from him?"

Apollo nodded. "There were other complications," he said. 

"I'm sorry if I somehow brought those up."

"It's not you-- I've just been thinking about this a lot lately-- his execution's scheduled for next Thursday, and I'm still not sure if I want to be there. Or if  _he'd_  want me there."

"I never attended Manfred's."

"I suppose it's a roundabout way of saying thankyou to him," Apollo said. The futon had been forgotten; Miles wondered if his earlier silence hadn't been nervousness or insecurity but the simple desire not to upset the rest of his family. "He did do a lot for me, and he taught me most of what I know today. It feels wrong to act as though he never existed."

Miles nodded. "How does everyone else feel about it?"

"Phoenix doesn't want to be there, mom has forbidden Trucy from going, and I don't think they want me to go but they can't stop me." He scratched his nose idly. "Why didn't you go to Mr. von Karma's?"

"I was out of the country at the time," Miles said. "I didn't know when it happened." He replied quickly. Things had been hectic and complicated at around that time; Wright had just reappeared in his life, there'd been the incident with the body in his car; Damon Gant had been revealed to be yet another corrupt person he'd trusted... and then there'd been the losses in court, the painful blows to his self-identity. He hadn't just forgotten, he'd escaped. And Manfred's execution was yet another stressor on top of everything else.

"Did you... just forget him?"

He sighed. "No, I did not. I just found it easier not to be there."

There was an uncomfortable silence between them for a moment, and Miles was eager to change the subject. "You didn't say much about how you're finding the new living arrangements," he said quietly. "I suppose it's been a lot for you to come to terms with."

Apollo didn't say anything, either, and gave the futon a rough pull. It seemed to be stuck under the bed somehow, and he yanked at it again-- there was a scraping sound which Miles didn't like hearing, and then a  _crunch_  as it came loose. Shuffling himself backwards, he dragged the frame out, not quite looking at Miles. 

"Do you need some help with that?" 

"Okay." 

Somehow this was every bot as awkward as managing to not talk to Wright had been. At least here the focus could be shifted to a more real, more practical problem-- the setting up of the futon, and then sleep.

"There's not enough room for it in the living room," Apollo realised as he propped the futon up to its unfurled state. "I don't know why Phoenix thought..."

"I'll just sleep on the sofa, then." Humiliated, Miles suddenly suspected that Thalassa's invitation  _had_  been a purely token gesture, and there was a level of humiliation in that, all things considered.

"If I squash it up against the desk..." Apollo wrinkled his nose, deep in thought. 

"You don't have to," Miles said quietly. "It's your room-- it's your space and I don't want to intrude at all--"

"It's not really my room," he said. "It's more the study... when Thalassa and Phoenix's house is finished, this room will go back to being a study."

"So you'll be moving in with them?"

"I suppose so." There was an unhappiness in his voice. "I'd prefer to find my own place, Mister Edgeworth, but I don't suppose that's going to happen overnight." He didn't sound pleased, but Miles didn't push or assume as to  _why_. Pushing the futon up against the desk, Apollo nodded to the other man. "I suppose that's as good as it's going to get," he said. "I guess you might want to grab those sheets out of the cupboard under the bathroom sink..." He trailed off nervously as Miles nodded.

"Where  _is_  the bathroom?"

"Next to the temporary kitchen."

"Thankyou."

Finding the bathroom, and lugging a smallish suitcase through with him, Miles found his toiletry bag, brushed his teeth and changed into his pyjamas. 

Staring at himself in the small mirror, he considered the evening once again; it had been frustrating and tiring, all in all. He'd thought briefly about the idea of Wright seeing him in those pyjamas; sentimental and stupid as it was, he'd fantasised about it prior to his arrival. Of lying next to a sleeping Wright, or perhaps sleeping elsewhere and wandering through to see a half-awake Wright the next morning, watching his eyes take in the sight of him in sleepwear while he did the same...

Instead, there was a hollow space of nothingness. There was conversation which wasn't quite happening, there were uncomfortable silent self-censored patches. Maybe it would be easier tomorrow. 

 

  
He sighed and opened the small cupboard underneath the bathroom sink; linen had been crammed into it, and he found what he hoped were a set of sheets to fit the futon mattress.

Returning to study, he noticed that Apollo appeared to have fallen asleep on his own bed at the opposite end of the room. There was an innocence in him which reminded him of a younger Phoenix Wright; it was disturbing in a way-- the man was practically Wright's son and...

 _No_. It was petty desperation reassigning something else as a distraction from the bitter loss he'd incurred. The loss he had no right to be bitter about, he reminded himself.

He quickly made the bed up and switched the light off, pulling the sheets over him and realising that a hotel with a kind-sized bed and chocolates on the pillows likely would have been preferable to this.

 

 

It was dark and he was tired, but he couldn't find sleep.

He tossed and turned on the futon, unsure whether he was too hot or too cold, and why his continent-crossing, jet-lagged brain couldn't switch off.

He felt guilty, wondering how much worse he'd feel in the morning, if it would be better for everyone if he just left and found a hotel room, perhaps calling in for a final visit before... before  _what_? He never thought he'd feel this nomadic, this  _displaced_. Europe didn't feel like home-- he'd realised that and left-- but seven years later, Japanifornia didn't feel like home either. It wasn't just Wright whom he was missing, who'd changed and who'd left him; it was his  _home_  which had left and changed in his absence, too. Perhaps, he wondered, some of his grief was at that...

 _No_. He'd returned for Wright, and now Wright had changed, forgotten him apparently, and had quite happily set up a family with someone else. He consoled himself with a somewhat bitter thought that perhaps Wright had been lying, using underhanded manipulation to keep him in America-- that none of the airport sentimentality had meant anything in the first place, that he'd been  _smart_ , correct in leaving and not falling for it.

But Wright had been a different person back then. He'd worn an honesty on his face and in his words, he had an earnest sense of honour and justice. He was passionate and determined back then; now, he seemed relaxed and resigned. And having heard the story of what changed him, he wondered whether the desire to see Kristoph Gavin on death row had been motivated by a need for justice-- or  _revenge_. He'd used what could have been a brilliant career opportunity not for his career but to bring down Gavin-- and something about that made Miles uncomfortable. Wright loved the law-- well, the Wright he'd known had. Now this Wright loved his wife and his daughter and--

"Mr. Edgeworth?" Apollo called out from across the room. "If the futon's hard to sleep on, we can swap places."

He was startled to hear the other voice; Apollo appeared asleep-- but the offer was sweet. "I'm all right, thankyou," he said tightly.

"Is something... the matter?" It was an awkward question.

"No--" his voice came out in a snap; it was a stupid response-- Apollo wasn't an idiot, and he was only trying to be nice. He sighed. "I suppose I don't take very well to change."

He did not expect the younger man to reply, very quietly, "Me neither."

There was another silence between them, and then Apollo spoke.

"You know-- you're not like what I would have expected me to be like, Mister Edgeworth."

"Please-- Miles-- I've neither been your boss nor your mentor, and you're old enough, and established enough, from my understanding, to refer to me as your peer."

"Thankyou Mist--  _Miles_." He paused before returning to the previous topic. "Mr. Wright had mentioned you and I always had a different sort of idea of what you were like, I guess."

Wright had  _mentioned him_? He shifted along the futon, eager to hear more: what had been  _said_? Miles chuckled slightly; still uncomfortable with the idea that he was  _spoken about_  in a non-professional context, and narcissistically interested in what Wright  _had_  said.

"You did?" he asked.

"Wright made you sound like a cantankerous, overly-argumentative ice queen," Apollo admitted.  _He had?_  Miles fumed from where he was lying. Wright seemed to enjoy arguing as much as he had, and if he'd tried to describe Thalassa in unflattering terms, "ice queen" probably would have been on the list.

"But I think you're a lot more down to earth, personally." 

He didn't know what to say to that, so he said nothing; praise was still something he wasn't sure how to handle. As a child, he felt humiliated and spotlighted when he received praise, especially in areas where he hadn't excelled in his view, and as an adult, unless the praise was for his professional achievements, tangible, quantifiable things, he never knew what to say.

It was easier being not especially liked.

He thought about what had happened when Wright had said he'd liked him-- loved him-- everything had turned to chaos. For seven years, the world wasn't running as it should have-- and now he was here, dealing with this. If Wright had never opened his mouth, none of this would have happened.

"But I think it's a surprise for Mr. Wri-- I keep calling him Mr. Wright," he muttered to himself. "It's a work thing, but what do you do? I was only a kid when I started working for the Gavin Law offices-- so my boss  _was_  Mr. Gavin-- I couldn't have just used his first name-- and then seeing Mr--  _Phoenix_  there was..." He stopped himself, sounding a strange combination of confused and frustrated.

"And I suppose it's strange now that he's..." And Miles found himself pausing uncomfortably. The idea of this man thinking of Phoenix as a father was absurd and almost disturbing.

"Yeah," Apollo muttered. "He's not really my mentor, he's not just a friend, he's not-- he's my biological mother's husband, my former boss's friend, and was the lawyer I looked up to when I was a little kid." He sighed. "It's  _complicated_."

In the darkness, Miles nodded, memories of his obscure relationship with Manfred returning to him. The von Karma years weren't just strange, there was a blurring of lines that made them almost obscenely inappropriate. They were so isolated from the rest of the imperfect population, they had essentially built themselves an intense, hidden little world where everyone else's rules didn't quite apply to them. There were neither father and son nor student and teacher nor colleagues nor lovers; yet somehow, a combination of all of these, and a dark undercurrent of confusion and wrongness pervaded everything.

"I understand the confusion," Miles murmured. "I had a similar problem with the household I grew up in." He thought of Manfred then, Manfred's treacherous praise and the subtle manner in which he and Franziska had been played off against one another which he only came to realise when he was in his twenties.

"Fortunately there was no familial connection, and he treated me as though I already was a man, so we just used first names." He tried not to think about how much more complex and disturbing any further closeness-- if Manfred  _had_  legally adopted him, for example-- would have been. 

Thinking back to the dinner conversation, he realised that Apollo and Phoenix had known one another long before Thalassa had reappeared in America.

He couldn't help but wonder if there was another horrible twist to this mess, and fell silent, feeling guilty once more for thinking of it  _as_  a mess.

"I don't even know what to call Thalassa, to be fair," he admitted. "I first met her during that case-- she wasn't Thalassa then, or my mother-- I'd all but stopped wondering about that-- she was  _Lamirior_ , the internationally-acclaimed singer." 

With interest, Miles noticed the bitterness in Apollo's voice, but didn't mention it.

"And  _mom_  sounds strange." There was anger there, something barely visible beneath the surface, an ugly sort of hurt and rage.

Miles wanted to offer something--  _I never knew my mother, either_ , but the idea of comparing their situations struck him as unfair. His own mother had died; there'd been a short struggle with a brain tumor, apparently, and he recalled seeing her lying in a hospital bed and being told not to touch anything around her, and weak fading smiles and then life with just him and Gregory. 

It wasn't as though she'd given birth and walked away, signing him over to the care of the state because... she'd never said  _why_ , actually. Miles wanted to be bothered by the lack of explanation, but felt it would be unfair, that in doing so, rather than merely prying, he'd appear to be looking for reasons to actively dislike Thalassa, to  _want_  to see Wright's family shattered-- nonetheless, thinking about it made him uncomfortable. 

"I can imagine," he said weakly. "Albeit, not very well."

"It's okay," Apollo said quietly. "I just-- sometimes I just wonder how the world turned into this."

"I know what you mean," Miles agreed.


	6. Guarded

Breakfast was a disorganised, scrambled affair.

The size of the office-cum-apartment hardly allowed for the typical family-around-a-table scenario, and the limited space in the kitchen area, as well as four-- now five-- people sharing a bathroom which made the average en suite look huge in comparison-- only added another obstacle.

There was a hurried, turn-taking use of the facilities-- someone was in the bathroom, someone was heating up waffles in the microwave-- at least several people could sit around the glass coffee table and eat together. 

"I'll be pleased when we get into the house," Thalassa commented as she put the kettle on-- "We've been living like this for a fortnight and it makes you realise how wonderful space really is."

Miles was surprised at Wright; he'd shaved this morning, but instead of wearing the sharp suit from his earlier days, he was still dressed in the grey hooded sweatshirt and the slacks and sandals from yesterday. He looked momentarily irritated at the comment, and Miles could understand why-- for  _years_  he and Trucy had called the office-apartment home, it had not been a temporary situation for them. 

"It must be difficult," he said vaguely. "I hope I haven't intruded too much."

"It's lovely having you here," Thalassa said vaguely. "I've heard so much about you over the years, it's a pleasure to finally meet you."

He wanted to offer a "likewise," but couldn't: he'd not heard anything about Thalassa, and under different circumstances, it would have been a pleasure to meet her, but now--

"Thankyou," he said. "Can I be of assistance in the kitchen?"

She laughed. "Phoenix was telling me that you make a good cup of tea," she said, "So if you'd like to..." she smiled as the kettle clicked off, water boiled. "I never seem to let it steep long enough-- or something."

There was embarrassment in her voice; she wasn't  _accustomed_  to making tea, he suspected.

"Sit down," he said warmly, "I'll take care of it."

Trucy dashed into the living area then, frantically in search of something.

"Truce?" Wright looked up from his toast. "I thought we talked about not taking Mr. Hat to school."

Trucy stopped in her tracks and glared at her father. "Thanks for destroying the magic," she snapped. "I was going to show Mr. Hat to Mr. Edgeworth. Have you seen my magic teacup, too, Daddy?"

"Did you try in your room?"

She rushed into the makeshift bedroom, and Wright turned to Miles in the kitchen. "Kids," he said affectionately.

"She sounds as flustered as you used to in court sometimes," he commented with a wry smile as he located teacups. 

From her seat at the coffee table, Thalassa chuckled. "Would you believe I never saw in court?" she asked.

 _No_. He couldn't believe that. He didn't want to believe that: being a lawyer was what Phoenix  _did_. If one's career was part of their identity, she was missing out on--

What  _was_  she missing out on? He mentally chastised himself-- this was a different Wright now, Thalassa knew nothing of him when he was a lawyer. The closest she'd come to  _seeing him_  on court was after he'd helped implement the jurist system, and that had been back in the days of her blindness. Unfair as it was, he resented her for missing out on so much.

"I'd like to hear about what he was like," she continued, amused.

 _What he was like_. Miles didn't have the words this early in the morning to try and explain. He'd been intense and passionate and unprepared, and he'd always appeared to have some unlikely trick up his sleeve. He turned cases around in his favour without even realising what he was doing half the time. There was passion and intensity and brilliance-- and a strange sort of electricity between them in the early days; watching Wright in court was admiring the brilliance of a talented performer, only he was thinking on his feet, there was no rehearsal and little of his preparation showed during the trial. 

"Well," he said, turning to face her, "He was-- passionate." He combed his fringe out of his eyes and smiled. "I could tell some amusing stories about watching him sweat."

Thalassa smiled broadly. "I'd like to hear them."

"He was a complete showman in the courtroom," Miles continued. "I was often surprised that the judge didn't find his clients guilty because he was so irritatingly confident when he had no idea what he was doing sometimes." He chuckled.

"I was a very good lawyer," Wright protested. "And it was  _fun_  watching you get worked up."

"Which probably happened in your memories a  _lot_  more than in reality," Miles offered with a smirk. "I recall  _you_  having your moments, too."

Thalassa watched them, a coy little smile on her face, and when Miles noticed, he began wondering just what she knew. She'd said she'd heard about him: did Wright tell her the full story?

He suspected not.

Trucy reappeared in the living room and walked to the kitchen area, apparently in a nicer mood now that she'd found what she was looking for. "Could I please have a cup of tea?" she asked sweetly, holding out a suspiciously perfect cup.

Miles eyed her carefully and smiled. 

"I'll admit to having some suspicions," he said. "Since that cup wasn't with the others and--"

"Trucy!" Apollo rushed out from the bathroom and groaned. "Last time you did the teacup trick, I had to clean up the mess-- can't you show him the flowers or something?"

Unperturbed, Trucy smiled at Miles, who was watching her; a new one-man audience. "Okay," she said. "Flowers." 

"Have you eaten breakfast yet?" Thalassa called out from across the room.

"In a moment--" she dismissed her mother-- "Okay--" Looking at Miles, she grinned again. "Watch my fingertips-- now... blow on them... just lightly..." She held her hand out, every bit the performer.

Miles blew a puff of breath at her fingertips, and from seemingly nowhere, a bunch of paper flowers materialised in her hand.

"How did you...?"

"Family secret." She bowed, and handed the flowers to him; from the coffee table, her parents and Apollo clapped.

"Very good," Miles admitted. He smiled, and Trucy, satisfied at being able to show him one trick, poured a cup of tea and sat down with her family. 

They chatted amongst themselves about the day ahead, only brief, comfortable base-touching conversation, and glancing over at them, Miles realised on the two sofas, there was no room for him. Today, he'd decided, he'd return to his apartment, though what he was going to say to Gumshoe was something he hadn't yet considered. 

"Have you got plans today?" Thalassa called out to him. "We could show you the house if you like."

It would be ungrateful to refuse, he felt, so he found himself answering as he sipped his cup of tea. "That would be lovely, thankyou."

 

 

He'd driven Thalassa to the house.

With Trucy at school, Apollo slaving away in the office, and Wright having decided there was grocery shopping which needed doing, the tiny apartment-office had become a lot bigger and a lot quieter. It could have seemed spacious.

He'd planned on catching up with Gumshoe that day, but Thalassa's offer appeared to have been in earnest. 

"We're having the floors sanded," she explained as they drove down. 

Miles knew nothing about home renovations. "That sounds wonderful," he said, hoping he sounded enthusiastic. The conversation died there.

When he wasn't watching the road, he watched  _her_. With the windows open, her hair was swept back with the incoming breeze; she stared out the window vaguely, still ethereal and removed from the world around her. He longed to say something, but didn't know what: was she even remotely uncomfortable, as he was? Words sat inside his mouth, a million questions he could have asked, but he was afraid any of them might be some kind of Freudian slip. Instead, he settled on one which had bothered him, which no one had answered the previous evening when they'd fallen deep into discussion about the past seven years.

"You never told me when you and Phoenix--" it felt strange calling him Phoenix-- "married," he said. "Was it that long ago?"

"Four weeks, today, in fact." As if reminded, she glanced down at the simple wedding band on her finger, and smiled to herself. "We only had a small ceremony, just the four of us, Apollo's father and the celebrant."

That was something  _else_  which hadn't been mentioned. He felt his skin prickle and he leaned forward, curious. 

"Apollo has a rather  _strained_  relationship with his father," she admitted. "As do I." For the first time, he heard a hint of irritation in her voice, which also piqued his interest. "It seemed like the right thing to do, though, to invite him. I don't suppose it's possible to rekindle relationships without trying."

She flinched then, and Miles wondered if she was afraid of making the same Freudian slips he was. 

"Valant refused to accept that he had a son," she said quietly. He'd heard the name "Valant Gramarye" mentioned briefly the previous night-- he knew who he was, but little had been said about him. "I--" she cut herself off. "I was young and foolish then." A tinge of pink glowed on her otherwise unaffected face, and she turned her head towards the window a little more. "When I left the troupe-- Howard and I eloped-- I wasn't even aware that I was pregnant..."

He could have said nothing, allowing her to continue. "You don't owe me an explanation," Miles said quietly. "Everyone has their secrets."

"I--" And that was when he suddenly realised just how uncomfortable Thalassa was behind the mask of stillness. It was Lamiroir's stage face, hiding the nerves with calm and without the veil. The only things which had changed was the way she craned her neck, head tilted down slightly-- and her voice, which held a note of panic. "I need to explain," she said quietly. "Every now and then I can't help but wonder if I've made so many mistakes in my life that everything is just waiting to topple down and crush me." She paused abruptly. "Not that I could think of my son as such-- but what I did--"

"I understand the sentiment," he said quietly.

 

There was a silence between them for another moment. "I knew what life with the Troupe Gramarye was like; we were all but sideshow freaks. When Howard proposed to me, we ran. We hid. And-- I don't even know what happened-- Howard was working as a solo performer at that stage, doing seedy little comedy clubs and bars-- I was keeping a low profile lest anyone recognise me--" She stared out the window as she spoke. "I was seventeen and pregnant; Howard and I had decided we'd keep things simple, it would be just the three of us..." She paused again, and smiled sadly. "Apollo was born at sunrise," she said. "I still remember that morning; as the sun rose, this glorious golden light, I'd gone from feeling as though I was going to die to holding a human being in my arms." Her voice had softened again. "There I was, seventeen years old, a runaway, living with my husband the virtual unknown, and everything felt like a strain-- and then suddenly I'm holding this baby... the sun that morning was brilliant; it was like looking at pure, glistening hope for a moment; in my naivete, I assumed that everything would somehow be all right..." 

Miles didn't know what to say. His own experiences with family life were warped at best, and his understanding of parenthood was limited enough to be considered non-existent. Having children had never been a consideration for him-- listening to Thalassa speaking about it was surreal; if she'd been looking for empathy, he wasn't able to give it. Still, he recognised the sadness of loss.

"When Howard was killed on-stage-- a drunk heckler threw a chair at him-- it made the news, and suddenly I had nowhere to go... I was eighteen, I had no money, rent was due, and I had a father who'd sworn he'd kill me if I fell pregnant-- all I knew, all I  _had_  was Troupe Gramarye. I had one of two choices: live in hiding, and in poverty-- with my son-- or return to the troupe, beg for forgiveness, and subject Apollo to the wrath of my father... or... to do what I did." She stopped then, and Miles heard a sniffle. He didn't respond.

He didn't know how to; emotional reactions made him uncomfortable, and this was out of his league. 

"I left Apollo with social services-- I signed over my parental rights in maybe twenty minutes, and headed back on a bus to where I knew Troupe Gramarye were... I remember that bus trip-- I sat by the window, just looking out, wondering if I'd ever be able to look at a little boy around his age and not wonder if it was  _him_ \-- he was already starting to  _look_  like--  _him_ \-- and I knew-- as eighteen year olds seem to-- that I was doing the right thing-- at least my son would have a chance at a normal life."

And that was when she broke down. 

Miles concentrated on the traffic; he didn't know what to do-- he wasn't  _used_  to strangers telling him their life stories, and he didn't know how to  _deal_  with tears-- he looked idly around the car for a box of kleenex when they stopped at a red light. 

Thalassa forced herself to look at him.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I, just..."

"I'm sorry," he said uncomfortably. 

"I just thought you..." she trailled off again. "Phoenix always said you were trustworthy, and you deserve to know, I suppose." She looked at him then. "I know he's been stand-offish with you, but I think he's still coming to terms with you returning..." Another pause, and she reached into her purse and retrieved a handkerchief. Dabbing at her tear-stained cheeks, yet still managing to look perfectly composed, she continued. "We all are."

Miles stiffened behind the wheel, not sure what to say.

"I just wanted to let you know that I understand what it's like when you have to leave people and you truly believe it's what's best for them."

He opened his mouth, not sure how to respond. "Thankyou for trusting me," he said after a few moments. That horrible feeling had crept back into the depths of his stomach; pity and shame and self-loathing at returning and disrupting the Wrights' beautiful calm. "And... I'm sorry."

 

They drove home in silence, but it was a different kind; comfortable and understood; Miles felt strangely  _safe_ : he knew Thalassa's truth; well, some of it-- yet she had not pried into his.

To give trust was to earn trust, in some situations, he thought. Or to leave the possibility of trust being earned at some future stage. He may have admitted his sentimentality towards Wright to himself, but he still wasn't naive and open; he did not just  _give_  parts of himself away like that; it was one thing to let people in, it was another to trust  _everyone_. Miles knew himself to know that he was  _guarded_ , and there wasn't anything inherently wrong with that; the problems seemed to arise when he made the mistake of letting the guard down-- at least up until then, things ran efficiently and smoothly with minimal interruption and no surprises.

  
Wright was back at home when they returned. He pretended not to pay too much attention as they embraced warmly-- were they  _really_  this physically affectionate with one another all the time or was this something  _else_? Was Thalassa still uncomfortable with his presence-- was her clinging to Wright, literally as she was at that moment-- a convenient metaphor for something else?

Wright had complained that he'd not been physically affectionate, but  _he_  hadn't been, either. And right now, his eyes were closed and he was hugging his wife. It was too personal seeing this; Miles longed for the distraction of more space or somewhere else to shift to; he drifted into the study for escape, grateful that the futon had been folded away and pushed underneath the bed. 

From his desk, Apollo looked up at him. He looked bothered and serious, hard at work and either irritated at the distraction or at whatever was facing him in the papers in front of him.

"Forgive me," Miles offered blankly, assuming it would be safe to duck back out into the living room; "I didn't mean to barge in like this."

Apollo's face brightened. "I was actually going to as for some advice," he said. "I'm meeting a client later in the week and now that we have the jurist system in place--" He trailled off nervously. "I know you've never worked under that system, but you said that you knew of it..."

He didn't wish to be reminded of that. Perhaps, when he'd heard of the system being introduced into Japanifornia's courts, when asked for a recommendation for a lawyer capable of overseeing its implementation, the name "Phoenix Wright" had appeared in an email to a few notable types. But that was purely professional: Wright as a lawyer was innovative, unafraid of trying to do things a different way, and completely indifferent to conventional wisdom and tradition. Miles knew nothing of his disbarment, he'd been asked for a name and he'd provided one. 

And he wasn't going to be credited with influencing the decision to nominate Wright; that could have been anything-- politicking, most likely; Wright had been disbarred so quickly and without apology; it was most likely the legal profession's unofficial apology, giving him such a pivotal role.

"Some European countries have the jurist system," he said vaguely. "Though you'd possibly be better asking Trucy or your mother for advice on appealing to an audience."

Had there been something bitter in the way he'd mentioned Thalassa then?

"But I'd like a prosecutor's advice; my mentor taught me that at least part of destroying one's competition was learning to think like them, to predict their moves before they could enact them, to learn how to respond to them." He stopped there, and smiled.

"That's a wise strategy," Miles agreed with a nod. "Your mentor sounds like he was very..." And he stopped there, remembering  _who_  his mentor had been.

"He was brilliant," Apollo said softly. "He could read people without any bracelets or Magatamas--" (how the  _hell_  did Apollo know about  _that_?)-- "there was a simple magic to  _that_ : he didn't need props or tools, he could just figure people out." Putting his hand over his mouth as though he'd just belched, he looked away, his large brown eyes embarrassed. "He  _was_  brilliant," he said again.

"I wasn't doubting that at all."

"Even though I shouldn't say that."

"Sometimes admitting to the truth is harder than going with an easy or more palatable answer," Miles found himself saying vaguely. "Perhaps your mentor was like my own in some ways: while possessing a capacity for great evil, and a regard for human life which diminished when human lives got in the way of his-- he still had the ability to show kindness and concern for his student." 

Apollo nodded. "I'm glad you understand," he said. "It's not like I can really talk about him with many people." He looked down at the paper work in front of him. "How would  _you_  make your case more convincing for six members of the public with no legal training?" he asked. "Trucy would suggest white doves-- since she's been asking for a pair since her last birthday, apparently-- but I think the courts still have that ruling about no live animals."

Miles chuckled. "I think that came in not long after Wright cross-examined that parrot."

"That was the case against you, wasn't it?"

He nodded. Once again, he wasn't expecting to go back here; the memories still stung a little; it wasn't unbearable pain which kept him awake at night and relying on tranquilisers and too much red wine to dull the throb; but it was an unexpected, irritating sort of pain; a papercut injury.

"That was the case where I realised I was somewhat obsessed with Mr. Wright-- with his  _career_ \--" he added in quickly, a red flush coming into his cheeks as he turned back to the paper. "I was twelve years old," he continued, as if that somehow alleviated his nerves-- "and I'd pretend to be sick so I could stay at home and watch his cases."

"And not mine?" Miles asked with a slight, teasing smile.

"I remember you," Apollo said, "But I was all about Mr. Wright: he was a hero to me; I wanted to be a defense attorney just like he was-- I wanted to work with him, to meet him, to..." Still red-faced, he stopped himself. "I suppose you get the idea," he said with a bit more dignity. "What I'm talking about, not that you were-- that--" Suddenly, his gaze dropped to the papers in front of him and away from Miles.

"This is rather awkward," Miles said, and brightened, vaguely bothered by the idea that perhaps  _Apollo_  had had inconvenient feelings-- though at least unembarrassingly age-appropriate ones-- for Wright as well. "Let's discuss this case of yours."

The colour had left his face, and he smiled again. "Thankyou," he said.

"Though if you're looking for expert advice from a brilliant defense-- there's one in the next room. Wright was very good at the theatrics."

"He argued that he didn't mean to be, that that was just how he  _was_."

"Well... what do you think worked-- what did you find memorable and compelling?" He smiled again, taunting gently. "What was it that made you remember Wright from the old trial recordings but not me?"


	7. Stage

In the darkness, he could pretend that he was someone else. He could pretend that he was here alone, he thought, as he sipped his drink and the stage lights came on. 

He could pretend he wasn't sitting next to Wright-- or that he was next to Wright, that Thalassa wasn't sitting on the other side of him. He had a few hours to enjoy the show for what it was.

He wasn't quite sure how he got roped into this; a visit had suddenly turned into something much more complicated. It was meant to be his time to reconnect with Wright, not to become versed in the goings-on of his new family-- but courtesy-- or something more-- a clinging urge to hold onto whatever small part of Wright that he might have had-- still remained. 

And so, they were at the WonderBar, waiting for Trucy to appear.

There was a puff of grey smoke, dusty and vaguely rose-scented, which filled the air, obscuring the light, thickening it-- and then came the appearance; perfectly rehearsed and flawless, she appeared, smiled to the crowd in front of her, and the music started.

Magic unnerved him. It was a silly thing to be bothered by, but it could be a metaphor for so many other things, things which frightened him and he couldn't understand; change and secrecy and being fooled by appearances. He studied her movements carefully as she made flowers appear out of thin air, as she linked rings together, as she poured a cup of tea into a box and it emerged as a cake. He tried to understand the mechanics, and it frustrated him when he coudln't; Trucy was a gifted performer, something he was acutely aware right now that he wasn't.

Throughout the set, he couldn't help but steal the odd glance at Wright when the frustration of trying to understand the magic became too much. It was strange how much he'd changed; the man he'd known years ago would have responded to magic tricks with a cynical bent, he thought; Wright appeared mesmerised and proud, his mouth twitching into a smile every so often, and then back into enraptured concentration. He would have known the stunts but he behaved as though he didn't; he gasped when Trucy's hat shifted to the side and a mechanical puppet burst forth, he laughed at the corny jokes "Mr. Hat" and Trucy "told" one another, he clapped and cheered at the right moments. 

It was sobering, seeing this-- Wright was a  _father_  now; seeing what he'd transformed into made him wonder what they were all still clinging to: why couldn't Wright look him in the eye or talk to him normally?-- why did it seem that Thalassa had more to say to him than he did?

And why was he still here? What was he waiting for?

Trucy called from an assistant from the audience; Miles watched as a young man walked up to the stage and climbed up, Trucy offering assistance with a dainty, white-gloved hand. He watched as the assistant was locked into a box, the sections manipulated as though he were being cut into pieces, the crowd oohing and ahhing.

He felt removed from the situation: the surreality of the magic only added to the overall sense. There was a flash of light and in that moment he noticed Wright and Thalassa holding hands, both smiling peacefully whilst watching the young man be "put back together" and the doors of the box opened.

Everyone applauded, the compere appeared on the stage next to Trucy, the show was ending and Trucy bowed for the audience. 

At some stage, he'd slipped into, or been pulled into-- another world, one that he didn't belong in. He wanted to go back to  _his_  world, all of a sudden, to its dysfunctional processes and random people, to work he understood where everything was reduced to simplicity.

This vacation was meant to be simple. It should have been processes and systems; maybe a few challenges, but ultimately, he'd reasoned, things would turn out for the best.

 

 

"Mister-- Miles?" 

The lights had come back on now, and Trucy was off-stage, embraced by her parents. Apollo was standing next to him, lines of concern on his forehead. "Are you okay?" 

"Mmm." Finishing the rest of his drink, he offered a nod and a murmur.

"You look a bit... tired."

"I suppose the jetlag is still catching up with me."

Apollo nodded, and didn't say anything in response. 

  
Another day, another night-- had turned late and to one without a hotel room being booked. This time, though, no one asked if he wished to stay as they entered the office; it was a given which no one had agreed to.

The car ride back following the icecream they'd gone for after the show had been as surreal as the magic show; Miles' sense of otherness was seeping back-- he felt like an unnecessary fifth wheel, a reluctant child dragged along for a family outing. He hated himself for feeling like that; everyone had been perfectly accommodating and inclusive-- it wasn't  _them_ , it was  _him_. He'd sat and listened to Trucy's enthusiasm about her show, he'd chimed in at the right moments and his responses felt stiff and wrong. 

When they'd returned home, Thalassa had headed for the bathroom, Trucy to her room, and Wright had uncomfortably milled around in the living room. Miles found himself selfishly wishing Apollo could retire to the study, but when he did ("I'll put out the futon?"), Wright had lingered only for a moment before mumbling something about going to bed. 

There'd been a strange look on his face when he'd done so; Miles wasn't sure whether it was promising in some fashion or just uncomfortable-- there'd been a flash of  _something_ , as though he wished to speak-- his mouth had opened slightly, and then he turned away. "Goodnight, Edgeworth," was all he'd said, and Miles was left alone on the sofa. 

Tomorrow night, he swore, he'd be sleeping at Gatewater. 

He thought of Trucy's magic show as he padded through to the bathroom and brushed his teeth; Trucy gave the illusion that she damaged or broke things-- and then seamlessly fixed them in the flash of a moment. Perhaps he'd longed for the ability to do the same, in some sort of hopefully naive manner. 

He was neither a performer nor a magician, and he was no longer dealing with illusions, his own nor anyone else's.

 

 

"Miles?" 

There was a rustle of fabric from across the room; Apollo was shifting in his own bed. 

He was tempted to feign sleep or temporary deafness, to pretend he didn't hear. But it seemed unfair: after all, his awkwardness and discomfort had nothing to do with Apollo, Apollo was being perfectly friendly and sweet-natured. 

"Mmm?" It wasn't much of a reply. 

"I was having a think about the discussion we had about my mentor this evening."

He made another "mmm," unsure what to say. 

"I've decided to go to the execution."

Why was he being told this?

"And... I was wondering if you'd be able to drop me off at the bus line. It's a long way out, and the buses only run hourly, and, well, if I get there late..." He sounded uncertain. "If you don't want to, that's okay... I'll--"

Head pressed against the pillow, Miles nodded to himself. "I'll drive you to the prison, if you wish."

"I- er--" There was another staggered, uncomfortable moment from him. Almost endearing, in a way; Miles had another flashback thought to Wright when he was younger-- there was a sweetness to Apollo's demeanour which Wright had lacked-- "Thankyou."

"When is it?" he asked.

"Friday afternoon."

"I can do that." It was the  _least_  he could do for him, he supposed; a way of making  _something_  right for someone, even if it wasn't the intended recipient. "Would you like me to wait for you?"

"I don't know." His voice was heavy and miserable, as though the idea of the impending execution had only just dawned on him properly. "I haven't really got much experience with this." He stopped, and his voice rose slightly, determined. "But it seems like it's the right thing to do."

He was tempted to make a bitter observation about how sometimes what seemed like the right thing to do  _wasn't_ , that sometimes it only made things worse or served to make you uncomfortable. But--  _no_. That would be selfish. And there was a removed sense of closure which came with the idea of helping Apollo through this, even if it was only in the role of a chaperone. It was something he'd fled from and never dealt with; this could be an opportunity to make sure Apollo saw things through to their conclusion. 

He neither encouraged nor dismissed the rightness of attending; it wasn't his place to.

"Thankyou," Apollo murmured softly. "I-- really appreciate it." 

As with Wright, Miles had the sense that there was more Apollo wanted to say-- but he didn't. When certain that the conversation had ended, he curled around awkwardly on the futon and closed his eyes, longing for sleep. 

He avoided his apartment. 

Telling the family he should really see to alternative accommodation for their sake, to afford them their privacy, he booked himself a room at the Gatewater, and a flight back-- home-- no, not home-- to Germany soon afterwards. He had a matter of days, and the relief it gave him was pleasant; sometimes knowing your time in a place was limited was comfortable.

Explaining that he had  _things to do_  had been a white lie-- he wandered the streets of his home town and relished the memories-- his old primary school looked similar to the way it looked when he'd attended before being abruptly uprooted with the DL-6 incident; it had received a coat of paint and some new playground equipment-- the monkey bars Wright had jumped from, spraining his ankle when they were nine-- had gone, being replaced with a smaller, more brightly coloured structure. The house across the road where the Wrights had lived still looked as he remembered it during those fourth-grade days when they'd walk back from school and have lemonade and cookies over homework. He wondered if Wright's parents still lived there, what they were doing now. A sentimental side of him almost wanted to pay a visit; to call in and announce his return to  _someone_ \-- to quell the sense of being an outsider which he had now that things hadn't turned out how he'd supposed they would. 

 

With his lighter hair, the glasses, the much more informal argyle vest and the physical nods to middle age his body was giving him-- (which was ridiculous, he felt, he was nowhere  _near_  middle-aged) he could slip into court virtually unrecognised. He watched from the upper level as Apollo's trial commenced, smiling to himself, realising how absurd it was to be spending his vacation observing what he usually did while at work. He didn't know the prosector; he'd heard the name Klavier Gavin before, but seeing him in the flesh, and putting two and two together was strange. He found the man annoying; too confident and willing to throw convention to the wind, utterly eccentric and a showman-- that was what people wanted nowadays, wasn't it?-- and he felt a pang of sympathy for Apollo who was up against him.

  
He was uncertain about the jurist system, and vaguely wondered how Manfred would have taken to it. Manfred, like Apollo's mentor, had liked tradition; the jurist system was laughing in the face of it. He wasn't sure whether the idea was genius or insanity, or whether it walked the fine tightrope between the two-- and he found himself watching the jurors when Gavin's behaviour became too obnoxious or the witnesses testimonies needed repeating.

 

  
In the evening, instead of returning to the Wright Anything Agency, he headed to his hotel room, showered, and collapsed upon the bed. He had  _days_  to kill, and nothing to kill them  _with_. Time had frozen for him; he'd thought he would have had catching up to do, that everything would rush by too quickly-- but the opposite had occurred and he was left with blank space to fill in: blank space which he'd assumed Wright would have filled in some way or another.

Alcohol was an option, anonymous encounters with people were remotely appealing, but his self-consciousness prevented it. Years ago his nerves about being  _seen_ , about who he was and his sexuality kept him from going out; now he was in a city known for its hot bodies and beautiful people. The idea of trying to fit in to that scene caused him to cringe to himself; he was too old for that-- he was too old for  _this_. The world had settled down as it grew up; he'd grown up prematurely and sorted out his career aspirations, but the rest of him hadn't,  _couldn't_  settle-- and when he'd wanted to, he'd realised he was too late. 

He cursed himself for promising to drive Apollo to the prison; was his concern for the young lawyer his own desperation to fix what he couldn't with Wright?

He thought of Wright's coolness; had Wright gradually turned into that, had losing his badge and being betrayed by Kristoph Gavin brought it on, or had it set in earlier? And more importantly-- was it  _his fault_?

The television and the exorbitantly priced minibar could offer little in the way of comfort, but they did offer longed-for distraction. 

He was living the life of a sentimentalist, living in the moment, trying to do hopelessly right things; the sorts of things people were meant to want to do, the sorts of things romance movies and stories about heroes said made people  _great_.

He didn't feel great. 

  
With his third miniature from the fridge, he stared into the night sky from his penthouse suite view and realised something: his greatness wasn't going to be a happy ending, it was going to be a humane one. He looked into his reflection then, catching the wrinkles and worry lines life and stress and overworking himself had gifted him, and sighed. What was gone was gone, and it  _hurt_ : he'd put off thinking about the reality, he'd blunted and avoided it just as he'd run away from it years before. Wright wasn't coming back. He'd had his chance, possibly, and he'd not taken it. 

It was no one's fault but his own.

He should have slept well, but like a lost chance, sleep evaded him, being lost somewhere amongst self-loathing, regret and sorrow, and a flood of tears and realisation which had arrived seven years too late.


	8. Words

His avoidance stretched up until the point where he arrived at the office, leaving five minutes for Apollo to get ready if he wasn't already. It was basic consideration; he'd estimated the length of time it would take to get to the prison, he'd added twenty minutes just in case, and he'd added an extra half hour for peak hour traffic getting in the way, and another ten in order to be on the safe side. 

And he'd told Apollo over a phone call, that he would be there at midday, and he'd arrived five minutes early.

So far, it was all running to plan.

  
Apollo appeared to be punctual as well, much to his amusement ( _How the_ hell _is he able to survive under the same roof as Wright?_ , he wondered) and when Miles knocked once on the door, it was promptly opened, as though Apollo had stood there, waiting.

"I don't think Mr. Wright's very pleased with me," he admitted. "He told me he needed to get some milk and bread--" Apollo looked worried-- "But he was rubbing the back of his neck in that way he does when he's trying to look casual but  _doesn't_."

Miles knew the look; he'd seen it back in their days in court. He could envision Wright rubbing his neck like that and it hurt-- it was an endearing little gesture, something so subtle and subconscious and so completely  _him_.

"I don't know if he's bothered because I decided to go, or if it's because he feels like I'm betraying him since Mr. Gavin was the one who was responsible for his disbarment, or if it's... more personal."

"How so?" Miles asked without consideration. The suggestion of something  _personal_  here was ridiculous; he was offering a friend's psuedo stepson a simple favour.

Apollo flinched, his face tinging slightly. "Just because-- the two of you have issues," he murmured. "The whole unexpected reunion thing." 

Miles didn't question that, and Apollo seemed eager to drop the subject as well.

"Have you got everything you need?" he asked. It was a silly, superfluous question. 

"My keys," Apollo said, patting his pocket. "But now that you mention it, I should probably bring my wallet with some identification-- prisons ask for identification, don't they?"

Miles nodded, wondering if he was starting to channel some of the younger man's apparent nervousness. It would be silly if he did, he reasoned; he never knew Kristoph Gavin, only of his actions. 

But there was a lurking sense that it was about more: he'd be facing something he couldn't last time-- he'd conveniently not been there when Manfred was executed.

And then there was Apollo; skittish and nervous right now, but still concerned about his mentor to some degree, and still longing for closure. Miles vaguely wondered how Apollo would  _cope_ \-- he would probably be all right as others were-- but there was a looming sense that he would react with some sort of emotion. 

Miles knew he wasn't good with unexpected emotions. 

He was glad that Wright had tactfully-- or angrily-- or cowardly, whichever it was-- left for the moment, and hoped he wouldn't return until they were on the road somewhere; Wright could be emotionally impulsive, and it didn't seem  _fair_  to Apollo.

He wrinkled his nose in self-disgust. It was really none of his business what was fair and what wasn't, who was right or whether Apollo had the right to see his mentor one last time-- he'd agreed to drive him there, he was merely following through on his word. 

He watched as Apollo dashed into the living room, grabbing his wallet off the coffee table, and nodded. "I think that's everything," he said quietly. "Thankyou for doing this."

Miles merely nodded; if he hadn't  _promised_ , if he didn't  _have_  to do this, he would have likely backed out by now. Unfair as it was, he found himself for resenting Wright and Thalassa for not assisting Apollo in arriving at the prison; this wasn't  _his_  job, but...

But he'd offered. He didn't smile when he looked at Apollo, but gave a curt nod. "Let's go, then," he said solemnly.

  


  


The drive to the prison was a silent one.

Apollo didn't say anything; rather than gazing out the window as Thalassa had, he stared through the windscreen, as though willing the journey to come to an end.

Miles, too, didn't say anything; it wasn't a case of there being nothing to say, rather an excess of thoughts and words which didn't belong anywhere. There was a seriousness to the trip, something which casual observations and meaningless discussion about the weather or other motorists wasn't going to remedy. 

Traffic had been slow, and they'd arrived fifteen minutes early. Navigating the car park had been a trial in itself; Apollo had glanced out the window like a child, scanning for vacant places which weren't reserved for staff or the disabled or state cars. He offered no advice or suggestions, and when Miles eventually pulled into a space and removed the keys, the two of them sat there, waiting for the other to say something.

"Do you want to wait here?" he asked Miles, in the sort of voice that suggested he would have preferred company.

"What would  _you_  prefer?"

"I-- um..." Looking towards the massive building ahead of them, and then back at Miles, Apollo fell silent.

"If you'd prefer company..." Once again, he mentally cursed Wright and Thalassa for their avoidance of this situation. 

Apollo nodded, and as though it was settled, both of them opened their doors and stepped out.

  
"I've never been in a prison before," Apollo babbled quietly as they approached the doors. "I mean, I've seen my clients in the detention centres, but I've never actually been into a maximum security prison, you know?"

Miles nodded. "Nor have I," he said as they approached what looked like some sort of work station, where a bored-looking man in a uniform waited.

Accepting their identification and asking them to sign in, he handed them slips of paper and motioned for them to walk beneath an archway. Another guard asked who they were visiting--  _visiting_  seemed such a strange and incorrect description-- and when Apollo's strained voice croaked out "Kristoph Gavin," there was a nod, and they were escorted down a series of corridors.

Miles could see that Apollo was shaking, that his body twitched nervously as he walked; he could feel that nervousness too, but willed himself to stillness-- there was no rational reason for shuddering; it wasn't as though he knew the man, it wasn't as though he harboured any opinions on capital punishment, and now wasn't the time for ethical considerations-- he'd been part of the process, finding criminals guilty-- and he was aware at least some of them had met their end in prison thanks to his involvement.

That he didn't know  _why_  he was feeling like this made him uneasy; useless, senseless emotional responses, unexplainable behaviour-- especially his own-- bothered him. 

They were led to a stark white room, and the door was shut behind them. The first thing Miles noticed was the window at the front; long and obscured by a navy curtain on the other side. 

Had people stood where he was now, or somewhere like it, when Manfred had been put to death? He flinched, drawing his gaze away from the window and to Apollo.

"This is surreal," the younger man murmured. He could only nod in agreement; the air around them was sombre and heavy; he longed to sit down but couldn't. He wished for casual, distracting conversation, but there was no one to talk to. From across the room he could see a few other people there for the same reason they were-- some appeared to be prison staff, and the other, the man he'd seen only days ago in court, was Klavier Gavin, who avoided looking at anyone, his hair and the angle his face was tilted at obscuring any expression.

He could feel Apollo standing close to him, could catch the shudders bristling from his body, and he bit his bottom lip anxiously as the curtains drew open.

"God," Apollo murmured then, his eyes fixed upon the man lying on the gurney in front of them. 

 _So this is Kristoph Gavin_.

There was something menacing about his appearance, not completely stable. He looked pale and ashen, his grey eyes held a panic which he seemed desperate to control, and his lips formed a tight line, not quite a smile, not really a grimace. Miles had heard very little about him; he'd heard that he was a brilliant defense attorney, that he was always in control, that he was clever and sophisticated and manipulative; that barring his terrifying explosion in court, he always managed to look dignified. He didn't look any of those things at that moment, and Miles' gaze moved from his troubled face to one bare arm and then the other, to the tubes attached to him and leading somewhere out of the room. He felt queasy, and mentally admonished himself for his squeamishness. 

Next to him, Apollo shook, and without realising it, he reached around to place an arm over his shoulders, unsure now whether the gesture was to comfort the other man or to steady himself. Gavin's eyes shifted across to them, and a voice somewhere said something official sounding; Miles wasn't paying attention-- the sob which escaped Apollo, who flinched away from him--  _shame? Embarrassment? A need for space?_ \-- he wasn't sure-- garnering his attention.

"Thankyou, I suppose," came a soft, nasal voice from behind the chamber-- "For your visitation." They looked to see Kristoph speaking softly; a nervousness in his voice, a shudder which would have moved to the rest of him if he weren't secured to the gurney, Miles suspected. 

"I-- did not make plans for a statement," he continued; "I did not know what to say-- what  _does_  one say at their moment of death?" There was a vague smile from him, and Apollo leaned forward, a tear leaking down the side of his face. Miles longed to say something, to  _do_  something, in the absence of being able to run back to the security of his car, but he couldn't-- he was frozen to the spot, shell-shocked. 

"Justice," Kristoph said softly. There was a tired look on his face as he spoke, as though it were taking effort to summarise what he wanted to say. His mouth opened and then shut, and he smiled slightly. "I underestimated you, didn't I?" 

Apollo's mouth hung open and he sniffled, openly crying now. "I'm--" 

"You had the makings of a brilliant lawyer," Kristoph continued. "While it is not my place any more to instruct you, I can only wish that you follow through and go on to achieve great things." Another strained smile, and Miles noticed that Apollo wasn't the only one crying; perhaps he'd underestimated him-- there was a quiet dignity in the way he was able to maintain as much composure as tears ran down his face. He blinked, suddenly amused. "And... Miles Edgeworth." A curious smile. "Did you finally realise that he'd never gotten over you?" 

Miles felt himself clench up at that statement; this was unexpected-- was it another of Kristoph's legendary moments of manipulation, or was it something more? Suddenly he longed for discussion, to find out what had happened in those seven years he'd been absent. He blinked, surprised and stunned, staring at Kristoph intently, trying to read anything he could on the man's face-- but he'd turned to Klavier instead.

"And...  _Klavier_." The smile changed, to something warm and sad. "I didn't expect to see you here." His eyes closed for a moment, then opened with the realisation that this would be the last time he'd get to look at him-- "I never knew how to say goodbye."

Klavier was sobbing openly now; what had sounded like a sneeze burst forth from him, and he'd shifted slightly, mouth moving silently as though trying to say something.

" _Ich liebe dich, kleiner Bruder. Ich werde nie aufhören, dich zu lieben._ " He sighed, trying to shift under the restraints, his voice dropping again, a combination of regret, fear and misery. " _Es tut mir leid._ "

And then there was the  _look_ , a gaze summarising everyone for what felt like an eternity.

And then the damning voice of an official. "Time."

  
He didn't see the moment Kristoph Gavin died. He watched as though drawn to a horrific crime scene, focusing on the little details, the way he lay back and smiled slightly, the way his eyes closed in slow-motion, the twitch and the clench of his jaw. He knew little of the procedure of lethal injection, but Gavin still looked  _alive_. An agonised sort of uncomfortable, undignified human-- had he looked like that when he slept?

He glanced at Klavier, who had tilted his gaze to the ceiling again; he looked stiff and uncomfortable as there was the hitch of another sob from him. Behind them, the guards looked stoic; Miles had no idea why they were in attendance and his mind wasn't ready to consider practicalities like that right now; his attention shifted to Apollo.

Apollo was standing to the side, not quite looking at Kristoph, not quite avoiding the still body presented by the window. How long did it take for someone to die, anyway? He'd never thought to research it; he merely waited through what seemed like an eternity, reaching out awkwardly to Apollo who sniffled and shifted away uncomfortably.

He didn't know what to do. He wasn't particularly good at affection, he realised, nor at comforting gestures. Everyone knew this, everyone commented on it-- and here he was, desperately wishing he could make everything better.

He glanced around nervously, not sure where to look; he knew death, he was no stranger to it-- his work revolved around murder investigations for the most part; he'd walked a fine line between life and death in his earlier years harbouring suicidal tendencies; his mother had been a subconscious introduction to its finality and the perfectly surreal notion of being able to speak to someone one day and knowing they were gone forever the next. 

And then there'd been his father. 

And Manfred.

And Buddy Faith and Bruce Goodman-- he'd never known them well, but he'd seen them around the office; death followed him around, it seemed, without his encouragement or permission.

Yet this was his strangest encounter with it; the shock of the unexpected wasn't here; everyone  _knew_  what would be occurring; the incident was reduced to emotion and conflict and confusion, to the regular grief and sadness of a more conventional loss of life. 

  
Something beeped, and he looked up; a voice announced that the time of death was fifteen-seventeen, and there was an awkward moment where they just stood there, frozen, as the curtain gradually closed.

He did not remember returning to the car.

  


  


The silence in the car ride back to the office had been haunting, though when Apollo finally started speaking; when he'd grown tired and  _needed_  to speak-- if that was what it was-- it was worse.

Miles hadn't said anything, either. Consumed with his own thoughts of the execution, and of Kristoph's mention of him-- was he telling the truth?-- was it just some sort of last-ditch effort at causing drama and chaos?-- he longed to ask Apollo what he'd mean, how well the young attorney knew Mr. Gavin and Wright; but it seemed when he was about to say something, Apollo would be otherwise occupied-- looking as though he didn't wish to be disturbed, crying softly to himself, or gazing out the window.

About halfway towards the office, he sighed. "I know it mightn't have seemed like such a good idea, but... thankyou," he said quietly.

Miles didn't know what to say--  _My pleasure_  was inappropriate given the circumstances, and he was having his own reservations about his part in it. He privately suspected that in not going, and not encouraging Apollo to go, Thalassa and Wright had made a sensible decision. 

" _Was_  it the right decision?" he asked.

"I don't know-- I think so."

He dissolved into another bout of tears then. "I think I needed that," he said. "Otherwise I would have just thought about it."

Miles nodded, eyes on the traffic, knowing how that felt all too well. He was numb and unhappy; it had been, as Apollo said earlier,  _surreal_. He longed to forget about today, to return to the hotel room and lose himself in a bath, to sleep, to think about his journey back to Germany.

But the floodgates had opened now, and Apollo wanted to talk.

"I wonder what he said to Klavier," he mused. "That was his brother-- the man standing up the end--"

Miles nodded. "He said that he loved him and that he was sorry."

"I forgot you spoke German." Apollo's voice babbled-- "Which is silly of me but I always associated that with... Klavier."

Miles merely nodded, the irritation, the wanting to ask about Kristoph's statement grating at him. 

"Having lived in Germany on and off, I do know the language," he said with a slight smile, skating around the subject. 

"I wonder if he knew anyone else would understand."

"I suspect he did not. Perhaps the only one he felt he owed an apology to was Klavier... given that he appeared to have genuine affection for him as a blood relative."

Apollo's face tinged red and he looked towards the window, sniffling once again. Miles couldn't help but think it strange that Apollo hadn't mentioned the fact that Kristoph had mentioned  _him_  in amongst the last words he was to speak to the world-- did Apollo know anything about that situation or had it bypassed him?

"He liked a lot of people," he said vaguely. "And he was a good boss-- he was strict and completely organised, and he had a very dry sense of humour, but he treated me...  _well_."

There was an ambiguity in the last word. "It was funny," he said quickly, "I wanted to be a lawyer because of Mr. Wright, but by the time I'd gotten the apprenticeship, I had all but forgotten about him."

Why had that felt like a blow to him? Miles didn't know. He watched the way Apollo turned around in the seat, reaching for a tissue. "You truly believed that Wright forged evidence?"

"In a way... yes." He couldn't quite look Miles in the eye as he spoke. "I didn't know Mr. Wright then, but I know Mr. Gavin was the only person to stand up for him against the panel. He was like that-- he had this charisma and fairness and kindness about him that--"

The way his voice rose with the memories, the way his words stumbled and staggered-- was worrying, Miles thought to himself. 

"Perhaps it was guilt," he said.

"Mr. Wright believes he was just taking advantage of him all along."

"So do I."  _And I wish he'd told me about it earlier, because I would have put a stop to it._  He felt his knuckles tighten, white and hard against the steering wheel.

"Even though Mr. Wright was..." and that was when he trailed off again, a mortified look coming into his face for a moment, the mark of a terrible Freudian slip. 

"Wright was  _what_?" Kristoph's recognition of him in the chamber came back to him.

"They were going out for a few years," Apollo admitted. "And..." By this point, his face looked red; hot with the crying and the admission.

So much for promises and waiting. 

Miles wondered  _when_. Had Wright just waved goodbye at the airport, been disbarred, and then jumped into bed with the enemy? He felt the muscles in his body tighten angrily-- he'd been stupid to believe that, stupid to return-- it almost served Wright  _right_  if Gavin had been--  _no_. That was petty and unfair. But it certainly cast a different light on the notion of waiting for someone.

"I'd met Mr. Wright in the office," Apollo admitted; "once, when I was about fifteen... it wouldn't have been long after he'd been disbarred, and it was strange looking at him and knowing he was the same man I'd idolised years ago. I'd always wanted to meet him, but..." He stopped again. "The reality paled in comparison to the idea."

 _And the idea was destroyed because of your boss_ , Miles longed to snap back, but didn't.

"I kind of..." and he stopped again. At least he wasn't crying any more-- "Mr. Gavin had become my hero," he admitted; "He was kind and he was clever and he was...  _there_. And he took me seriously and treated me well-- he talked about when we were going to be partners, that it would be the Gavin and Justice law offices; he encouraged me, he--" and he stopped abruptly. "When I met Mr. Wright for the first time, he was kind of--  _a jerk_." 

Miles couldn't fairly respond to that. Wright  _could_  be "kind of a jerk"-- he'd experienced it first-hand, and he expected that serious little teenage Apollo wouldn't have appreciated what Wright thought was good-natured humour.  _He_  certainly hadn't appreciated it, much less when it was in the middle of something serious, such as  _in the middle of a trial_.

"And Mr. Gavin stood up for me, I remember." He smiled, a hint of smugness gracing his lips. "He asked Wright if he was  _jealous_  of me..." He chuckled. "Mr. Gavin had that sort of humour underneath the fact that he was fairly humourless-- it was ironic and sarcastic like that."

Miles was worried about that  _look_  he'd just received.

"Surely that's not appropriate behaviour in a workplace," he said tightly, " _especially_  when a member of staff is underaged."

Apollo's voice hardened, and he looked towards the window. "If you're suggesting Mr. Gavin did anything he shouldn't have in regards to me, he  _didn't_ ," he said, his voice defiant and angry.

Miles now had another question on his lips--  _But you had interest in him, didn't you? You liked feeling important in his life, you enjoyed the attention, you were fascinated with him and the way he seemed strangely reliant on you--?_

Perhaps Kristoph Gavin and Manfred von Karma didn't share every imaginable similarity.

"I wasn't," he said tightly. He longed to be out of the car now, and there was still a good ten minutes until he arrived back at the office. The plan would be simple; he'd drop Apollo off and leave him to explain whatever he wanted to-- or didn't want to-- to his family, he'd stop by the pharmacy for some over-the-counter sleeping tablets, have a nice relaxing bath, and sleep more beautiful than he'd had when he arrived. 

There was another stilted silence between them, and then, as they turned towards the main road, Apollo spoke. 

"I didn't know that you didn't know about Mr. Wright and Mr. Gavin," he said. "I'm sorry."

Miles laughed airily. "Why should something like that bother me?" Inside, his guts seethed and raged.

"Because you're touching your elbow," Apollo noted; "You do that when you're uncom--"

"You don't need to interpret  _my_  body language," he snapped. "It's--"

Apollo fell silent and sat straight against his seat, terrified to say anything else. The car turned a sharp corner and stopped on the other side of the street to the Wright Anything Agency.

"I know he said he'd wait for you, too." Big brown eyes gazed up at him, still threatening tears. 

Miles stared at him, open-mouthed and horrified. "Since I found out that, I wondered why Mr. Wright and Mr. Gavin were involved-- they were seeing one another at least once a week, and--"

"Wright mentioned that the other night," Miles snapped. He could feel the disbelief in his voice, the humiliation and anger. He hated how out of control he sounded. "They were--" Well, they weren't  _friends_. They'd been playing some sort of obscure psychological wargames with one another. 

"They saw one another socially." In the pit of his stomach, he  _knew_. He didn't want to, but he  _did_. Wright's promise hadn't been broken seven lonely years down the track, it had shattered when the sleazy Kristoph Gavin had singlehandedly tried to tear his life to pieces.

He didn't like the way his voice shuddered, the helplessness he was feeling, and the rage he harboured towards the man sitting next to him.

"I'm--  _sorry._ " Apollo's voice was choked with tears again. 

"How did you  _know_  about the promise?"

Apollo looked guilty once more. "I was helping them move things," he said. "I found his journal-- I didn't mean to read anything but it fell open and--"

"He wrote about it?" 

Apollo nodded slowly. "I didn't read anything consciously," he said, "but... I saw a mention of it."

"It's a wonder you were able to  _read_  that chickenscratch Wright thinks passes for handwriting," he said, forcing himself to chuckle and smile.

Apollo looked at him, serious. "I'm-- sorry," he said quietly. He unfastened his seatbelt, still eyeing Miles carefully. "I can only assume why you came back, and that it hasn't gone the way you'd hoped." Another heavy, uncomfortable pause, and a serious, deep breath. "If it's any sort of consolation, I'm glad to have finally met you."

  



	9. Release

It was so cliched and terrible, Miles thought, sipping the supermarket brand tea and glancing at Apollo, it was a fall from grace, a desperate, clinging sort of entanglement.

There were only a handful of occasions where Miles Edgeworth had regretted having sex with someone, but this was one of them, he realised. And it irritated him; he was a man of few errors, and he didn't  _want_  more regrets; his life was speckled with regret, and he still hadn't, never  _could_  adjust to it. Which was a  _good_  thing, he told himself, if regret became normalised, he would make mistakes more frequently and with little regard to the consequences. He'd become weak-minded. He'd--

"Satisfactory as that  _was_ ," he said, a coy eyebrow twitching at the statement, betraying the monotone voice, "we can't do that again."

Apollo sighed with relief and sipped his tea. "I know," he said. "It would be...  _strange_."

 _Strange_  was putting it mildly.

They'd slipped into the office (" _No one's home_ ," Apollo had noted, "The car's not out the front-- if you'd like a cup of tea--") and Miles' resolve to return to his hotel room, he decided then, could...  _wait_. He sensed that Apollo wanted company, leaving him to return to an empty office wasn't fair in some way; it had been an emotional afternoon-- and the thought of just abandoning him like that seemed  _mean_.

He wasn't surprised when the door was shut behind them and Apollo hugged him; people  _hugged_  when they needed something beyond words or when the only words which could come of a situation were harsh and ugly and complicated-- he had a momentary flash of what it had felt like, clinging to Phoenix, perfectly unaware that there was an audience watching behind the tinted windows of the car. 

He'd wanted this, hadn't he? Sort of. He'd wanted the feel of arms around him, of the warmth of a body pressed against his, and when he shut his eyes and ignored the height difference, and the fact that Apollo moved differently, his hands moving down his back with a nervous sort of reverence-- it could have been entirely familiar.

He didn't protest when the pressure increased, when the hug morphed into something else-- in the back of his mind, he sensed that something had shifted in less than a moment, that this wasn't mere comfort between friends-- no, they weren't friends, they were strangers united by circumstance and shared associates-- but there was a warmth here which made this entirely different to other situations.

As Apollo reached up on tip-toe and as his lips clumsily met his chin, he still refused to open his eyes; maybe they both needed this, maybe--

He felt himself being guided towards the study; here they had privacy, there was no unseen audience-- he felt hands skimming beneath his vest and swiftly tugging the shirt from his waistband; it had felt like an  _age_  since something had felt this  _real_ , this human and vulnerable. 

When they collapsed on the small single bed together, they were partially undressed-- Apollo was quickly removing his shirt and kicking his pants off on the floor somewhere, edging in to kiss him greedily. That look in his eyes-- hungry and desperate-- reminded him of the way Wright's eyes had looked the first time this had happened; he could safely imagine this was Wright, too, he felt, mental substitution was easy once you got the hang of it.

He felt the weight of the younger man's body on top of his, and his fingertips skimming along the inside of the waistband of his underpants. Apollo's skin felt different to Wright's, softer and smoother; he wasn't  _built_  the same way-- but a flash of thought of what what Wright looked like beneath that hoodie and those slacks occurred to him then; this could be Wright, if he thought hard enough about it-- the way he was pressed against him and the way his fingers brushed over his chest could have been Wright. He gasped softly as fingers found a nipple and the pressure against his mouth increased; Wright didn't kiss precisely like  _that_ , but-- 

In the back of his mind, there was hesitation. He shouldn't be doing this; Apollo was practically Wright's  _son_ , he was mourning the loss of his former mentor, he was confused, he was sad, he was--

"Can I?" 

He opened his eyes at the unfamiliar voice, suddenly transported back into this too-full study, with Apollo's earnest little face and huge brown eyes looking at him, lustful and wanting. He pulled gently at Miles' vest, lifting it upwards, seemingly oblivious to the way Miles but his lip in self-conscious concern. Was Apollo doing the same thing he was, running on autodrive and substituting him for someone else? He suspected as much, wondering if he stared at his reflection and squinted enough, if he'd possibly look like-- who? Wright? Gavin? Someone else? 

He didn't give it much consideration; selfishly, he realised that he was enjoying this too much; it wasn't simple distraction of intoxication, it was pleasure and want-- Apollo's hands felt good running over his skin. When his vest was shifted upwards by insistent hands, he wriggled out of it, his glasses getting lost in a tangle of wool and cotton.

He closed his eyes and lay back, feeling the younger man's breath ghosting over his skin. Reaching up idly, his hand grasped at his waist-- the realisation of just how  _slender_  the younger man was made him self-conscious once again, and aware of how this  _couldn't_  be Wright-- and he tried to push the thought from his mind. He needed this.  _They_  needed this.

It was simultaneously disjointed and intimate; there was an awkwardness, a sweetness which never seemed to feature in other virtually anonymous encounters he'd had, he realised; there was the fact that there was light in the room and he  _could_  have watched him as they drew closer-- but he didn't.

When Apollo's kisses trailed down his neck, down his chest and towards his thighs, he shifted, grabbing the covers on the bed and pulling them over their bodies. It was strange how expertly confident the younger man was, how he lacked self-consciousness like this-- guiltily Miles wondered where he'd  _learned_  that, and felt intrusive-- it was none of his business.

"Hold on--" Apollo shifted himself and reached down the side of the bed, scrabbling about and finding whatever he'd been looking for-- "If you're going to--" he pushed his body against Miles, leaving no question about what was being implied. It was vulgar yet polite, not explicit yet leaving nothing to the imagination. 

Miles could only bite his bottom lip nervously-- this was  _wrong_ , so wrong but it felt so perfect right now-- as he felt Apollo's hands guiding him gently, the stickiness of the lubricant and-- 

"Do you have any--?" 

Apollo shifted again, mumbling something Miles couldn't hear at that stage and cared not to, passing a small packet towards him. Instinctively tearing it open and applying the condom, Miles pushed against him-- the way he was breathing and the little mewl escaping him reminded him of Wright; the coordination and the grace didn't; he wondered once again where Apollo had garnered experience.

Reaching around and offering a few casual strokes, hearing the murmurs coming from the younger man, and realising, now horribly so, that this wasn't Wright, couldn't be Wright-- he was too small and soft and he  _moved_ differently and he  _sounded_  different-- he hoped to finish this as quickly and cleanly as possible.

He thrust into Apollo roughly, instantly regretting it and waiting for a protest-- surprised at nothing but a gasp and a delirious murmur, he pushed into him again, feeling his body jolt forward, his face smushed into the pillow in front of him.

He wanted this over with; if Apollo Justice had been some hot little number he'd picked up in a bar back home, he could deal with this; if Justice was costing him three hundred an hour and was assuring discretion, that would be acceptable. The completely unfair notion of just  _leaving_  money on Apollo's desk and disappearing back to his hotel room occurred to him, and he hated himself for it. 

He could feel the way Apollo's pulse raced, the muscles tightened against him, and his breathing sped up; there was a flicker of a moment where he saw Wright's face in his mind's eye; Wright tilted backwards, moaning and lost in ecstasy. He felt Apollo's body quiver and shudder a moment later in orgasm; a kind of freeing sort of release for him. Collapsing against him, Miles somehow already knew he was not going to do the same; the small gasps and murmurs surrounding them were  _wrong_ , were bitter reminders that he'd returned and yet he'd come back to substitution for Wright after seven years of longing. 

It wasn't Apollo's fault for not being Wright. It was his own fault, for taking advantage of him like this. At the realisation, he placed an arm around the younger man's shoulders, as though somehow a hug could make it all better. It was a simplistic notion, but people  _did this_ , didn't they?-- and he felt a wretch.

Apollo rolled over, unabashedly pleased with himself. Noticing that Miles hadn't found the release he had, he offered a coy smile. "Want me to--?" he offered, and Miles shook his head, embracing him once more and holding him close. The sooner he could get out of this mess, the better.

 

 

 

As if by means of misplaced apology, he stayed with Apollo for the remainder of the afternoon. He offered courtroom advice, stories about trials back in Europe, he made pots of tea throughout the afternoon.

Apollo seemed to be more resilient than he was; he didn't mention what had happened between them, returning to his work just as seriously and with the dedication he'd had before. It was haunting, in a way, reminding him of things he'd put to the back of his mind-- once again, he wondered about Apollo's sexual history; if this was just perfectly normal for him.

"Are you staying for dinner?" Apollo had asked casually as he cleared away some papers and shut down his computer. Outside the study, they could hear the door open; someone had returned home-- "Because--"

"Apollo?" It was Wright's voice, casual and hollow. He called out as though he wasn't expecting to hear an answer. "Are you in? Did you  _see_  that miserable son-of-a-bitch  _die_?" He paused, and cupboard opened as though he was helping himself to something from the makeshift kitchen. 

Sitting at his desk, Apollo didn't reply. His chin wobbled slightly at Wright's thoughtless comment, and Miles gave him a sympathetic look. "I don't think he meant for you to hear that."

"I bought tea," they heard from the kitchen. "I got that  _proper_  stuff, the  _expensive_  stuff, given the way Mr. Finicky seems to screw his face up whenever anyone pours him a cup of the regular stuff..."

Apollo and Miles glanced at one another in that moment. Wright had sounded so... not quite angry, but irritated.

"Perhaps I should eat out somewhere else tonight," Miles said quietly.

"Apollo?" The curtain was slid forward and Wright stood there, sheepishly rubbing his neck when he saw Miles sitting on the single bed. It was mortifying; Apollo didn't share his fastidious post-coital tidiness; the sheets were still scrunched up at odd angles, and the room had a vague smell of sex still lingering in the air. The condom wrapper was probably somewhere on the floor.

"Hello, Wright." He was attempting dignity in spite of the circumstances.

"Edgeworth." This was the first time he'd seen something in those blue eyes which had looked almost doped, almost  _lazy_  since his return; there was disapproval and disgust, a white flash sort of rage.

"I heard you bought tea." It was an off-handed remark. "Should I go put some on?"

Wright didn't say anything as he stepped off the bed, slinking out to the kitchenette. He'd made an escape of sorts. And once again, he found himself looking forward to his flight back to Germany.

  
Dinner was a strange affair; Miles had suggested another restaurant as a way of diffusing the tension between Wright and himself-- Thalassa and Trucy had heartily agreed with the suggestion, Apollo seemed indifferent but happy to go along with them, and Wright-- with another glare-- had reluctantly agreed. 

If Trucy and Thalassa suspected any of the tension that surrounded the others, they made sure they didn't react to it. Trucy chatted about her day at school on the drive over; Thalassa was cool and polite as usual. 

The conversation over their meal revolved around the mundane, Miles noticed. Trucy talked about school (her new science teacher was cute), Thalassa discussed the renovations and there was some discussion about where everyone's rooms would be situated; Miles sat and listened for the most part.

It was when after-dinner coffee arrived that Apollo looked annoyed enough to ask. 

"Isn't anyone going to ask me about what  _Miles_  and I did today?"

Wright coughed, and looked to the side uncomfortably.

"How did it go?" Thalassa sounded uneasy, and Miles stared very intently at the salt and pepper shakers on the middle of the table. He wasn't sure whether he was pleased that Apollo had broken the ice, and was simultaneously concerned that maybe it had been broken too quickly.

Trucy flinched.

"Yeah," she said absently, "How did it go?"

Suddenly looking out of his depth, Apollo glanced around uncomfortably. "It was... surreal."

"Perhaps it's not dinner table discussion," Miles offered gently. 

"I'm agreeing," Wright said. His voice was tight and uneasy. He eyed Apollo cautiously as the younger man looked at Miles.

"You knew him too," he said quietly. "It's not like he just  _stopped existing_."

"Kristoph Gavin destroyed lives," Wright said, the dark glare still in his eyes. "You can excuse me for not being terribly sorry about him meeting his fate."

"It-- it was strange." Apollo shook as he spoke. "I know what he did, Mr. Wright-- but--" 

"Oh look!" Trucy looked down at her coffee cup. "They gave us little chocolates with our coffee... isn't that nice?" It was an embarrassingly obvious attempt at steering the conversation elsewhere.

"In the cafe where I worked, we had chocolates like this," mused Thalassa, "Borginians like their coffee strong, and without sugar, so it's standard for chocolates to be--"

"Can we just talk about things  _normally_?" Apollo snapped. "Without all this skirting around things?"

"Apollo--" Miles tentatively rested a hand on his forearm. "Perhaps we could talk when we get back to the apartment."

"After  _someone's_  gone to bed," Wright noted, looking at Trucy.

"Why, Daddy?"

"Because I said so." There was no room for compromise in his statement. "We can talk about things back there. There's no need for us to be a freakshow when we're out having dinner." He glared at Miles then, as though this was somehow his fault.

There was a brief temptation to respond to that, to ask if the family's issues and their history were somehow  _his_  fault, but he said nothing, slipping a credit card into the leather wallet left on the table with the bill. He walked to the counter to pay.

  
They drove back in silence; suddenly the silence wasn't serene and calm any more; Miles longed for a stiff drink, to remove himself from the situation, to run again. He'd inadvertently walked into a family in the throes of... it wasn't really crisis, but a delayed, lingering sort of horror. He didn't, couldn't deal with this level of emotional turmoil; this was Wright's messy life that he'd walked into, seven years too late. The man whom he'd once considered the love of his life now despised him; there was no dignified way to back out and pretend it hadn't happened.

They returned to the apartment-office, and Trucy, he noticed, quickly shifted off to bed. Thalassa lingered in the kitchen, Wright hung around as though he wanted to say something, his face dark and explosive. 

Apollo seemed to watch everyone, as though waiting for something to happen; when nothing did, he attempted tact. "I'm heading out," he offered to no one in particular. 

No one said anything, and Miles, feeling somehow trapped, waiting for Wright's conversation, sat down on the sofa in the living room. 

Was all of this-- this animosity and the shared communication difficulty--  _his_  fault? It would be naive and stupid-- and arrogant-- to behave as though his arrival had caused the eruption. But he couldn't get rid of the feeling that he was  _somehow_  to blame for what had happened.

When Thalassa headed to the bedroom, and it was only the two of them remaining, Wright filled the teapot and sat down on the sofa opposite Miles. His presence felt threatening, and Miles looked at him awkwardly, waiting for him to say something.

"In hindsight," he said tersely, "I wish you'd never returned."

Miles blinked at him, pushing his glasses up his nose, wondering where Apollo had escaped to and if this had been what he'd been longing for; some sort of furious closure. 

"If I'd known I was returning to  _this_ , I wouldn't have," he said. "You seem to have sorted your life out nicely for someone who was behaving as though you  _needed_  me, Wright."

The expression on Wright's face didn't change. "So that's what all this is about?" he asked. He paused, and glanced over at the teapot on the bench. 

"It won't be ready just yet." 

Wright glared at him. "You shouldn't have taken Justice to the prison today." His words held the sentiment that there were  _other_  things he shouldn't have done with the young attorney, too, but he didn't state them explicitly.

"He needed closure," Miles said.

Wright's forehead wrinkled. "That's what everything's about with you, isn't it?" he asked. " _Closure_. As though everything can be neatly compartmentalised and tied up for a happy ending." Another pause. "That's what you wanted here, wasn't it?" 

"I--"

"It's been seven years, Edgeworth." He spat the words out angrily. "I may have promised I'd wait, but--  _seven years_? With no word as to your well-being, not even knowing if you were still  _alive_?"

"I--"

"You ran-- as you always do when you can't face up to things you would prefer to ignore."

"So you remember the promise." Settling back into the leather of the sofa, he forced himself to look Wright in the eye; to turn away was to risk being overwhelmed, to risk tears. "The way you've behaved would suggest that it was just another overly-sentimental, perfectly glib promise from a shyster of an attorney who just wanted to play the victim before I left." He hadn't realised, until that moment, how angry he really was. His face felt tight, and his voice was rising.

"Play the victim?" Wright chuckled, either from nervousness or though lack of concern. "That's hilarious, coming from someone who can't even use an elevator."

There was a sudden silence as both of them realised the line which had been crossed. Suddenly Wright had changed the rules, the discussion had turned to battle.

"It still goes to show how flimsy your promises are, especially if you're hooking up with a sleaze like that  _Gavin_  five minutes after I've departed," Miles said coldly. "I might have done some regrettable things over my life, but I can't say that I've regretted my judgement of character  _that_  much."

Now Wright's face as crimson and furious. "Where the  _hell_  did you hear that I'd hooked up with Kristoph Gavin?" His voice was steady and cold, oddly controlled for the attorney who thought nothing of screaming out objections in the courtroom. Perhaps there was a note of hurt; Miles couldn't tell. Most likely, he was keeping a low tone out of respect for his wife and daughter.

"I have my sources," he snapped. "Weekly meetings? The observations of office staff?  _Gavin's own words to me at his execution?_ " He was leaning forward now, glaring at the other man. "Or are you going to claim it was some perfectly innocent attempt at  _saving someone_?" 

"Get out." There was no change in Wright's voice. "Take your self-pity and arrogance, Edgeworth, and get the hell away from my family." 

Miles stood up. "A  _brilliant_  confession of guilt from a second-rate attorney who only knows how to hide his lies behind a change of subject," he sneered, pushing his glasses up his nose again and turning to the side. "I wonder what lies you fed to Gavin."

Wright just glared at him as he headed towards the door.

"I might have a tendency to leave when things get turgid, but I can't be accused of lying to myself in the way that you are, Wright." Touching the door handle, grateful to have found it, he twisted it, opening the door and stepping out into the night air. "Goodbye, Wright. I hope you know what you're doing here."

The door didn't slam-- Thalassa and Trucy were still sleeping in the adjourning rooms-- he closed it purposefully and quietly.

Wright didn't see how he dissolved into a flood of tears as he stepped out onto the sidewalk.


	10. Nightlife

It was a comfortable routine which he was all too used to. 

Loneliness and depression had driven him to the bars before; he could meet several wants-- or perhaps  _needs_ \-- at once. 

Right now, he longed for anonymity, and a stiff drink-- or several. 

Seating himself in the car, Wright's words echoed in the back of his mind.  _I wish you'd never returned..._  Tears leaked down his face, memories engulfed him-- Wright's hug at the airport; Wright's heartfelt promise to wait for him; Wright's tentative early-morning post-coital confession--  _I love you_.

"I wish I'd  _known_ ," he muttered to himself as he turned the key in the ignition. Maybe he should have caught a cab instead; at the worst, he supposed, he could catch one back to his hotel room. Or there was the obscure possibility of leaving with someone else. 

He felt free in a way that he hadn't before-- he no longer owed any of them anything; he could hit the bars he'd been too nervous to go to back in his glory days here; he could flirt and drink and party, he could look for the enticing gaze-- and possibly the arms, and lips and  _body_  of another to sate his urges-- he could do all this and not feel guilty.

And not, he realised, compare such a person to  _him_.

That had been the time in Europe-- the men he'd returned to bed with had little in common besides gender and the fact that there was something familiar and compelling about them-- dark hair, pale skin, bone structure-- there'd been the virginal just-legal who had the big eyes and the dry sense of humour, the older man with the broad shoulders and the loud statements, the heavily-pierced goth with the hair which spiked the same way as Wright's did.

That he'd used Apollo Justice as substitution was a new low, only because Apollo lived with Wright, there was an established relationship there. But otherwise, it was nothing new.

He parked outside the strip of bars and restaurants, noticing that Bar Turnabout was still in operation. He'd heard about the place years ago; it was a well-known haunt for professional men seeking a drink or two and  _company_. He'd never been there in the past, fearing for his reputation if the media-- or if anyone back at the office-- or if  _Manfred_ \-- were to find out-- now none of these were concerns. His hesitance lay in the idea that he was now ten years older than the middle-aged club-goer, that he'd stand out like a sore thumb, an old has-been who should have been put out to pasture, a desperate old man relishing the beauty and youth which had bypassed him.

Even if they laughed or ignored him, he comforted himself with the notion that he would be gone from here in a few days. 

He walked inside, hoping his somewhat casual attire would be suitable; if rejected, he planned to just head back to the Gatewater, wash some sleeping pills down with whatever was left in the bar fridge, and sleep. He felt slightly guilty for not having said something more final to Apollo, for letting him hang there during that awful dinner table conversation-- but really, what  _could_  he have done? Was there  _anything_  he could have said to make the situation less uncomfortable? 

 

  
He walked into the bar and surveyed the room, only remembering then that this always made him uneasy; he never knew where to sit and what to do, how to approach people and what to say-- it seemed that anyone remotely appealing had paired off with someone else, and the thump of the music in the background (a remix of the old Gavinners' hit,  _My Boyfriend is the Prosecution's Witness_ ) annoyed him. He wished he'd brought a book or the paper along for distraction, and suddenly found himself missing  _work_. Reading law books, in his younger bar-going days, could serve as enticement to fellow bar-goers-- it could be an ice-breaker for other legal professionals, and for other men-- lawyers, for some reason, were attractive.

 

He did not have the distraction of a book tonight, and he located the bar. Deciding to begin drowning his sorrows before working out to do from there, he ordered-- not his standard gin and tonic but whiskey. Straight. He didn't even bother with brands; the cheapest, nastiest, harshest variety of the stuff was enough and it served a purpose. He wasn't drinking to savour the flavour; he was drinking to forget.

Except that he couldn't, he realised, when his gaze moved across the room and caught a flash of red amongst the shadows. Apollo was talking with someone, loudly, his head thrown back, chuckling about something. Evidently, he'd been here awhile longer and had consumed enough alcohol to bring a stagger to his step and the oblivion to not notice-- or care-- about the man groping his crotch and leering at him hungrily.

"I'm a  _lawyer_!" he exclaimed in that court room bellow, before tilting his head back and laughing, "I could get you off if you needed it..."

He didn't know the man standing next to him, a lanky creature with a blonde streak through his hair and hands which were far too adventurous and impolite for someone like Apollo, Miles thought. He was taller than Apollo, and older, his body was lithe and model-like, but his face suggested he was like Miles, too old to be casually sauntering around places like this. A scarf dangled around his neck; he looked like some kind of artist. Miles frowned, and finished the drink in front of him.

Wright had told him to leave, to stay away from his family, and he was more than happy to do so. But he hadn't expected to see Apollo in this situation, in this  _state_. He wondered vaguely what Wright would say--

This wasn't about Wright any more. This was about Apollo, who was being steered towards a booth as though he was a piece of meat, this was about a person who was already a mess and--

Maybe Apollo was just doing what he was doing, looking for some comfort after a horrible day. 

But he was  _drunk_. It wasn't typical of him to go yelling out sleazy pickup lines. Miles wondered how he'd feel the following morning, with Gavin's execution and whatever residual emotion he had regarding his mentor, with what had happened between  _them_ , and with--

He walked over to them. 

"Missstah-- Edgeworth." Apollo studied him carefully and giggled, turning back to his companion. "He reminds me of Wright-- Phoenix Wright, the famous lawyer--" he explained-- "He he  _also_  reminds me of Mr. Gavin--"

" _Apollo_." He wasn't used to this, and he mentally cursed Apollo for being here, for being this drunk, for causing other patrons to look at them as they were. He'd wanted a simple night. Instead, he'd been met with  _this_.

"Phoenix Wright?" the other man asked. Suddenly his hands weren't touching Apollo any more, and he looked nervous. "That pathetic waste of flesh?"

Miles wasn't sure what Wright had done to earn  _this_  man's ire, and watched him carefully. He wanted to childishly agree, but something about the man's body language worried him.

"Leave Mr. Wright  _alone_." Apollo chuckled, throwing his head back and looking at the lights dotted into the ceiling. "He's all right. Sometimes." Another laugh and he indicated Miles. "Mister Edgeworth here--"

Without giving it much thought, Miles grabbed Apollo roughly by the arm, jolting him away from the other man. "We're  _leaving_ ," he hissed, pushing the younger man forwards and steering him towards the door before his new-found friend had a chance to protest his actions.

Pushing him through the bar, through bodies who were stopping and looking, bewildered and interested with drinks in hands, through the song which had morphed into another Gavinners' hit--  _My Heart is In Solitary Confinement_ \-- they reached the door, and Miles pushed Apollo out to the nod of a bouncer who looked less than impressed. 

"What the hell was  _that_  all about?" Miles growled. 

Pale and blank, and suddenly hit with the chill of the night air, Apollo stared at him for half a second, before lurching forwards and vomitting.

From the door, the bouncer made a disgusted grunt, and irritated-- and humiliated, Miles heaved him upwards, swearing under his breath. That simple act had cemented the reality that he wouldn't be enjoying a night out in a bar. Not that he'd been enjoying himself to begin with. 

"I'm-- sorry," Apollo said through a choked gargle of a noise, before leaning towards the gutter to be sick again.

This was not the sort of night out Miles had been wanting. But glancing at the younger man, he knew he couldn't just walk off and leave him there-- briefly the desire to have just ignored him in the bar occurred to him, and he hastily forgot it: he'd never been at _quite_ that level of intoxication-- not in public, at least-- but he knew the sting of heartbreak and humiliation.

Trying to ignore the way Apollo was staggering on his feet, and the stench of bourbon and other unpalatable things he didn't wish to think about, Miles gingerly placed an arm behind him and directed him towards his car.

"Mr. Wright is going to--" Apollo started to say as he sat down in the passenger seat.

Miles watched him carefully. 

"Have you-- er, done all the being sick you need to do?" he tentatively asked. "You don't need to-- do more?" His nose wrinkled in disgust; his poor innocent car's upholstery could be considered later on-- for the moment, there was the immediate problem of the young man sitting next to him.

And Apollo's concern was reasonable-- while it wasn't really  _his_  problem, the idea of just returning Apollo to the apartment-office seemed unfair. 

Next to him, Apollo shook his head. "I think so," he said. "I can unwind the window just in case--"

The idea of the his beautiful red Alfa needing a beautiful new paint job courtesy of Apollo's drunkeness didn't appeal to him. 

"Don't worry about it," he muttered. "You can come back to my hotel room and clean up."

"Thankyou..." His voice was a drunken, hazy kind of grateful. While Miles didn't particularly fancy the idea of a drunken Apollo in his hotel room, he supposed it was the best solution of the possible ones available to him, and he said a silent prayer to anyone who might be listening-- stupid and superstitious as it was-- that this wasn't going to somehow backfire on him.

 

 

 

When he was sixteen, he'd raided the von Karma liquor cabinet.

Of course, Manfred von Karma hadn't been the type of person to sully a beautiful antique cabinet with a tasteless modern lock which would both ruin the original intent of the piece and the aesthetic-- he assumed that his charges would be smart enough, or polite enough to stay out of things which did not concern them.

Miles had found a bottle of something called Creme de cassis; it smelled sweet and it  _looked_  sophisticated, and case law had taught him about drunkenness yet he'd never experienced it. He didn't know what to expect from drinking to the point of intoxication, but he knew the effect he hoped for: removal. Incapacitation. Escape.

He was weak and flawed and stupid and no matter what, he couldn't make the nightmares or the thoughts stop: his guilt about killing his father only exacerbated by the fact that he  _liked_  Manfred in a sense that was both weak and unprofessional --and deeply disturbing. If he hadn't killed his father, he wouldn't be living under Manfred's roof, studying under him, receiving those words which felt important and those casual touches which might have meant something-- it was as though some part of him was almost grateful, almost  _pleased_  to have Manfred in his life.

All he'd wanted was futile removal, just once, one moment where he could lose control, where his thoughts weren't his, where hopefully the nightmares would leave him alone, where he could relish just being out of his mind for one sweet evening.

He thought about the hangover, and Manfred's disgust and disappointment the following morning as Apollo showered. 

 

 

Sitting on the end of his bed, having carefully bundled the soiled clothes in a bin liner and tied it up, he waited; he'd left a complimentary bathrobe in the ensuite for his unintended guest, and he assumed he could send him home in something else-- if he escorted him into the apartment, pyjamas would probably do-- Apollo could return them later or... something.

He was almost grateful to the young man, because in a way, this was a distraction from Wright and what had been that awful parting argument. There was nothing he could do now, anyway; Wright had opened the discussion with anger, Wright hadn't wanted him to return-- why Wright couldn't have said that  _before now_  escaped him. He wrote it off to an attempt at a forced, polite and strained sort of courtesy rather than anything else, perhaps Wright was putting on a mask for his family. 

His family who probably knew everything anyway: Apollo had admitted to finding the journal, and Trucy's eerie observations in the car all those nights ago-- not to mention what seemed to be quiet understanding from Thalassa-- they  _knew_. Had they their own preconceived notions of him before his arrival? 

He was tired, he realised. He wanted to get into the minibar, to change into his pyjamas and curl up in the king-sized bed-- but he  _couldn't_ \-- he'd taken responsibility for Apollo's welfare and had to see things through. Thoughts of Wright had been relegated to a "deal with later" pile in his mind; he could process that once he'd returned Apollo to the apartment-- until then, he just had to sit and wait.

He heard the exhaust fan power off and the door opened; Apollo peeked out nervously, the too-long bathrobe wrapped around him and touching the floor.

"I'm sorry," the other man murmured, and Miles did a double-take. With his hair slicked back like that and darkened with water, the resemblance to a younger Wright was uncanny.

"It's all right," he found himself saying, quiet and shallow-- it  _wasn't_  all right, none of this mess was. But what could he say? Words were ineffective, and the last thing he wished for was more complication and conflict. 

Apollo blinked, disbelieving, walking through to the bedroom and grabbing that obscure bracelet he wore off the bedside table. He put it back on his wrist and sighed. "I don't usually do that."

"I think we've all been there." He smiled slightly, grateful that Apollo sounded as though he'd pulled through the worst of it. "I was a bit surprised to see you at that bar, to be honest, but--"

"I'd never been there before." Apollo sounded embarrassed. "I just wanted to get out of the house, to get away from everything for a bit-- and I thought that you and Mr. Wright needed to talk."

"We talked," he said bitterly. 

Apollo didn't say anything, but blinked at him expectantly, as if to ask "And?"

"Sometimes it's possible to do more damage than you suppose you're doing, I suppose," Miles said uncomfortably. "And--" he looked at the younger man seriously.  _He_  was the one who deserved an apology for the trip to the prison-- not Wright-- "I'm sorry if taking you to see Gavin was the wrong thing to do."

Apollo blinked again, seating himself on the bed next to Miles. "No," he said quietly. "I'm glad I went." Something seized up in his voice then, a strange sort of choke. "I needed to-- well, not really say goodbye, because I didn't, but..." He paused uncomfortably, tears glistening in his eyes. "I loved him," he said, quiet and miserable. "Not just as a mentor and a brilliant lawyer, but--" And he stopped there, before the gush of confession overwhelmed him. 

"I think I understand." More memories assaulted him then; that afternoon where Manfred had touched him on the shoulder and there'd been that shared glance which felt too awkward on both their parts to be mere coincidence; that risky night a few months later when Franziska was visiting and they'd slipped into the master bedroom, Manfred's fingers over his mouth and his soft voice telling him to  _not make a sound_ , the excitement pooling in his brain and his knowledge that he would remain silent even if it killed him; Wright's awkwardly enthusiastic and childish letters--  _I've even got a girlfriend now, Miles, and I love her and she loves me-- everyone says we're disgustingly in love_ ; seeing Wright again and that strange way his chest seemed to leap out of itself even though he knew it was stupid sentimentality; Wright's awkward confession-- " _I didn't think I had a snowball's chance in hell with you, Edgeworth_ "; the promise again, oh god, that stupid, horrendously sentimental promise to wait in People Park as though the place had some kind of spiritual relevance; the substitutions, a collection of men who'd always be flawed for the fact that they weren't Phoenix Wright; that hug by the car; the feeling he'd had when Franziska had told him to return and set his affairs straight--

He sniffled, constraining a sob. Apollo's eyes widened and he looked horrified, verging on tears himself. 

"I knew he probably didn't love me, but I didn't care. I knew he was seeing Mr. Wright, but I just kept thinking--  _if I stay with him, be around, look after him, be_ better _than Mr. Wright, he'll eventually see what he has there_." He was crying again, desperate and horror struck. "He was never cruel and dismissive in the way Mr. Wright was-- which was funny in a way--" His voice was speeding up now, out of control and spiraling, a whirling dervish-- "because I'd had such a  _thing_  for Mr. Wright for so long. I kept wondering if I was just wanting to see what I thought the old Mr. Wright was in Mr. Gavin. I guess I realised that I loved him for what  _he_  was when it was too late."

He stopped abruptly, crying now, silent and automatic, as though not even realising. Blinking, he saw that Miles' face resembled his own in some ways, wet with tears, but his eyes were avoiding his, looking down to his left. He was clutching his elbow again, looking away miserably.

Miles felt arms reach out towards him, and he flinched away. This was dangerous and stupid as it had been that afternoon; he already suspected Wright would assume the worst and he had absolutely no desire to make the truth match the reputation. 

"I..." Somehow, they were hugging. Somehow, Apollo's nose was pressed into Miles' shoulder, his wet hair against his neck, damp and ticklish and ridiculous.

Not knowing what to do, and if this was the right thing-- or worse-- Miles held him while they cried. And mentally prayed, stupid as it was-- that they'd both learned from the afternoon's mistake.

Apollo was the one to shift things; it was when one hand trailled down Miles' back that he could feel things slipping, changing, into something that they shouldn't change into, that he pulled back.

"No," he said quietly. "You need to go back home."

He felt the younger man's hand clutch him tightly. "It's not home-- it's--"

"It's where you live right now," Miles said evenly.  _And Wright will think worse of me if he learns we were drinking in the same bar together._  His own hand clasped over Apollo's, pulling him free. 

"I just live there," Apollo said flatly. "The happy ending came for everyone at the end of  _State v Misham_ , Thalassa told Trucy and I the truth, and--" there was acid in his tone-- "Can you  _believe_  she told  _Wright_  before she told  _us_?"

"From my understanding, Wright had figured it out on his own." He was almost amused by the fact that he was defending them. His anger and disappointment could have come out in another fashion, he could have taken advantage of it-- and of Apollo-- if he'd wanted to, but he didn't. 

"Wright didn't tell me, either," he said. "And he  _knew_  I didn't know." 

Miles inhaled sharply, unsure what to say. Never having had to deal with anything like that before-- no, this family's secrets and lies seemed so much simpler in comparison when they involved the dead-- he could see things differently. He could understand Apollo's irritation, but could only imagine how difficult life had been for Thalassa. Wright, he decided, was to be left out of the equation, because the rage which bubbled inside him when he thought of the man was  _not_  at all objective.

"And-- what would have happened if things had gone a different way?" There was hot anger in his voice again, and his face quivered, threatening more tears. "What would have happened if I'd been straight and if something had happened between Trucy and I? Before she turned up? Before any of us knew?"

"I don't know," he admitted.

"It would have been a case of more hurt and unhappiness that we would be expected to deny because we're all  _one big happy family_  now." 

Miles gulped: why was  _he_  privy to everyone else's secrets like this? Maybe it was his fault for driving Apollo to the prison-- but this time the error and the hurt was caused not through selfishness or his own inability to cope but through good intention. 

"You're sobering up," Miles said stiffly, shifting away from Apollo. "I'll leave some pyjamas for you in here while I use the bathroom myself, and I'll return you to the apartment."

 _And then_ , he thought to himself as he opened a suitcase which had been neatly pushed next to the bedside table,  _I will come back here, watch some mindless television reruns, and think about my return to Europe._

Fishing out a pair of pyjamas, black and satin and entirely too big for Apollo-- he threw them across the bed before turning and walking towards the ensuite.

"You always do this, don't you?" Apollo asked nastily. "You  _avoid_  people when they become complicated."

He slammed the door behind him, furious. Perhaps Apollo was in that semi-sober, overly emotional state of affairs, but perhaps his statement had more than touched a nerve; grazed it, wounded it. This time, however, his distance towards the younger man wasn't about  _his_  avoidance or feelings; it was about doing the right thing for someone who was distressed and confused and emotional. 

He decided against a shower; if, for some reason, Thalassa or either of the other two occupants of the Agency saw wet hair on both himself and Apollo, uncomfortable assumptions could be drawn. 

He thought uncomfortably about the way Wright had looked at him in the study, when the evidence of his interactions with Apollo hadn't been removed from the scene of the crime; they'd been stupid and careless in doing what they had-- under a different set of circumstances it would have been acceptable, but-- now--  _no_.

 

 

As he ran a comb through his hair and studied his tired reflection in the mirror, he thought about Apollo, about the way he'd been drawn into the whole mess. It wasn't fair-- he'd essentially been expected to take to everyone else's idea of what constituted a happy ending without complaint and without his own accumulated issues over the years impacting upon it at all.

  
He felt a sick feeling gnawing at him when he thought of Wright and what he'd considered would be  _their_  happy ending, and a sense of guilt; perhaps Wright wasn't reacting well to his arrival, but... how would  _he_  have reacted? 

He hadn't reacted well to Wright's confession seven years ago, either.

"Are you ready?" he called out to the hotel room, hoping that Apollo  _was_ , that he could drop him back and be done with this.

When he received no response, he tentatively opened the door-- Apollo as sitting on the side of the bed, looking thoughtful and unhappy, wearing the too-big pyjamas which gave him an almost comical appearance.

"Are you ready to go?"

Apollo stared at him, his face plainly suggesting that he wasn't, but that he had little choice in the matter.

Miles ignored the expression. "Good," he said, grabbing keys from the nightstand. "Let's head off then."


	11. Understanding

It was easily after midnight, but the streets hadn't slowed down; if Apollo hadn't been wearing pyjamas, Miles would have likely sent him to walk home by himself since he'd sobered up, but given that fact-- and the fact that it was raining lightly amongst the unnatural neon lights and the glow of streetlights; it only seemed fair to drive him down the road and to escort him to the building. 

He could  _leave_  after this, if he wished, and the idea made him smile sadly as the young attorney shivered under the umbrella he'd procured from his glovebox. He hadn't really achieved anything while back home, but he'd gotten some form of closure, he supposed.

As they silently walked to the front steps of the office, Apollo turned to him. "Thanks," he said coolly, "And I'm sorry about before." Miles wasn't sure  _which_  before he was referring to, but he nodded, as if suggesting that it was okay. It was. It didn't matter.

There was the soft glow of a lamp on inside; he could see it as the door creaked open and Apollo shifted himself in-- he wasn't expecting to hear Thalassa's voice, concerned and parental, and surprised at the realisation that he wasn't dressed in his usual attire.

"Things happened," Miles heard Apollo offer uncomfortably, and against his better judgement-- he was going to just  _leave_ , wasn't he?-- he shook the rain from the umbrella and folded it up, slipping through the door. 

Apollo was slinking off towards the study, and Miles nodded, feeling that his mother deserved some sort of explanation. He turned to her, noting the half-awake look on her face and the sheer blue bathrobe, and he murmured a  _"Goodnight,"_  to Apollo who didn't turn as he walked towards the study.

"I know Wright asked me to leave," he said gingerly, "But I couldn't very well leave him in the state I found him."

Thalassa's eyes widened for a moment and she looked towards the kitchenette. "I put on a pot of tea not long ago," she said quietly as if inviting him to join her. "I--"

"I really should respect Wright's wishes."

"What  _happened_?" Thalassa couldn't quite hide the suspicion in her voice or the wary look she was giving him.

"I assure you, nothing untoward on my part," he said stiffly, uncomfortable with his statement-- she had the understandable  _right_  to be suspicious, didn't she?-- "I just felt he deserved to return home with some dignity."

Thalassa raised an eyebrow and walked towards the kitchenette. Without asking, she poured two cups of tea and returned to the living area, seating herself on one of the sofas. "Perhaps I don't want to know what happened," she said quietly. "Perhaps I don't have a right to-- he's an adult, now, and--" she shook her head, sipping from her own cup of tea. "It's difficult trying to understand how to be a parent once your child is an adult."

Miles nodded; here she was, trying to offer him dignity and space, and yet she still had understandable parental concern. "I hope he talks to you," he said, finally giving in to the urge to sit down and sip the tea she'd poured for him. 

"So do I," she agreed. She didn't look away then, but her eyes didn't quite meet his. "It's difficult."

"I cannot imagine parenthood, myself," he said vaguely. He chuckled absently. "I'd never really given it much consideration."

Thalassa nodded, uncomfortable, as though she wanted to say something. instead, she sipped her tea again and looked at him. "At any rate, thankyou for bringing Apollo back here," she said. There was a stiffness in her voice, as though she could have easily suggested that the whole mess was his fault, but she didn't. 

Miles nodded, sipping from his own cup and placing it down on the tabletop gently. He didn't wish to betray Apollo by telling Thalassa what had happened, and he didn't know what else to say. They sat in silence for what felt like an eternity-- he couldn't just  _leave_  with a half-finished cup of tea there and what felt like a not-entirely-over conversation.

"I apologise for the awkwardness," he said vaguely. It didn't clear the air or make the tension any less stifling; the statement didn't even make  _him_  feel much better. "In hindsight, I should have left sleeping dogs lie." 

Thalassa blinked. "I think I know why you returned," she said quietly, "And I know that Phoenix hasn't reacted that well-- but--" Folding her hands in her lap, she nodded slowly. "I can imagine why you did. And I can't resent you for that, Mr. Edgeworth-- it would be hypocritical and unfair of me given the fact that I made a similar decision." She blinked, and then looked at him seriously.

It had started; it had been mentioned. They'd casually slipped into the conversation and now there was no stopping it. 

She sighed. "Phoenix hasn't said anything to you of those seven years," she continued. Glancing towards where their bedroom was, and then at Miles, she looked torn between the need for explanation and her husband. "I've encouraged him to talk to you." She sighed quietly and picked up her cup again. "I suppose you know how stubborn he can be as well." A hint of a smile appeared on her face, but it wasn't at all an amused one-- she looked reminiscent and sad.

"I think Wright has made himself clear on the matter," Miles said stiffly. "And I wish to trouble your family no further." There was release in those words, a painful sigh; he'd wanted closure and he'd somehow acquired something else, he supposed, in a perfectly bittersweet manner; he'd learned that love had an expiry date after all, and that it was probably unfair to assume otherwise.

He couldn't help but wonder what might have happened if he'd returned a few months earlier; would Wright have welcomed him back with open arms, or would there be more of this hurt and lack of communication to contend with? Would Wright merely seek comfort with his body as a means of substitution?-- for Kristoph Gavin or someone else? His lips twitched as he considered the idea. 

"I feel that talking to you would be in his interests," Thalassa said. "He needs answers, as my children did." She tilted her gaze towards the study, apprehensive, for less than a moment, as though thinking of Apollo and reconsidering the notion. 

"I fear that my presence here is not doing anything beneficial." Sipping his tea again, he glanced in the direction of the study before shifting it back to Thalassa's face. "To be honest, I'm concerned about his reaction if he were to wake up right now."

Thalassa sighed and her voice dropped to something only slightly above a whisper. "All I have to suggest what happened eight years ago was what he told me," she said. "And things I had to piece together on my own." She sighed again. "Being unfamiliar with both the legal world and America, I would probably have never known of you if it weren't for him," she said. "And it seems that you're a famed prosecutor."

Miles nodded and sipped his tea.

 

"My knowledge of you was limited to what Phoenix told me after weeks of pushing me away," she said. "I suspected that Miles Edgeworth was an excuse, a phantom name which he'd plucked out of some old court records, an alibi I'd never find because he mysteriously vanished." She chuckled darkly. "I never actually expected to  _see_  you, Mr. Edgeworth, let alone be speaking with you like this."

Suddenly, he was clutching his elbow again, tightly, digging his nails into the flesh between the bones. Thalassa spoke so calmly about it; it was as though it were no issue, as though she'd rehearsed it.  _Stage presence._  He wanted to sniff derisively. 

"I'm quite surprised," she continued. "I didn't imagine you'd be like this." She smiled again, her eyes examining his face carefully as though she were trying to work out just how and where he differed from the man she'd heard of. "Phoenix always said that you were highly-strung and argumentative, that you rarely formed attachments with anyone--" Another glance at the study. "You and Apollo appear to be getting along well."

Was there a hidden barb in that comment? Was it a trap? He wasn't sure, but felt he possibly deserved it if there was. He cleared his throat. "I suppose I would have been foolish to expect a flattering review."

"He also said--" and her voice had hardened then, there was a stern sort of uncompromising authority to her words-- "That you were probably the best friend he'd ever had, the only person who'd consistently shown up at a moment's notice for him, and the one person who knew him better than himself." 

And suddenly there was a hardness to her gaze, which caused him to gulp uncomfortably, and something behind his eyes to shudder. "It took me three weeks to uncover that much." Suddenly, her voice and eyes had changed once more, to something hard and terrible; it wasn't cruelty, it wasn't a desire to hurt for its own sake, it was a horrible, uncoated truth which she felt he needed to hear.

"Three weeks of wondering why he made excuses about not being able to see me-- three weeks of waiting every night by that bench in People Park while Trucy would run around the playground-- I  _knew_  there was more to it than him just being a doting father-- there was a routine to it, and a sense of shame." 

There was a lump in the back of his throat, and he didn't know who it belonged to. Was it for Thalassa, who'd pushed against his defenses even though he'd just likely been a convenient excuse since Wright had been involved with Kristoph Gavin anyway?-- or was it for him, finally hearing a miserable truth he'd hoped to ignore for as long as possible? Or was it for the idea of Wright, alone in the park waiting by the bench for him to return, when the idea of returning to Japanifornia had barely occurred to him?

He thought of Wright, sitting there in his grey hoodie and his sandals, ritualistically waiting for him every afternoon. He could practically  _see_  the expression on his face; that forlorn and hurt look, as he waited there.

"I never knew," he murmured. His voice was gravel now, the lump in his throat and the tightness in his chest was affecting his speech; there was the acidic twinge of tears in the back of his eyes which already felt like they'd cried too much, and there was the way his neck bent, his head hanging down, his throat leaning into itself. It was just a physical reaction; he was tired, it was late-- 

"He never called me," he added quietly.

He wondered how he'd have reacted if Wright  _had_  called him; the usual grumble about his routine being interrupted and his own ridiculous sentimentality as he tossed together a couple of suitcases and organised a flight back to America, he assumed. As he'd done before.

"I don't think he was willing to risk further rejection," Thalassa said. "Because the longer he kept waiting, the more he had riding on it. Phoenix is a gambler, but he's also cautious-- he spent seven years undefeated as a poker player-- he knew and could assess risk." She left the remainder of that sentence to his imagination.

 _He felt that the stakes were too high with me._

Biting back a sniffle, he forced himself to look her in the eye, his vision blurred and his throat tense.

"I'm sorry."

 

Thalassa sighed.

  
"This is why I wanted him to talk to you about it."

Tears were still running down his face, hot and stinging and unstoppable. "I'm sorry you've been put in this situation," he murmured helplessly.

Her expression still hadn't changed. "I knew what I was getting into," she said. Picking up her cup of tea, she took another sip. "When you love someone, you love them, scars and baggage and all." She sighed again. "Every single one of us is a product of their experiences-- that includes the Phoenix I met as well as the one you did." 

There wasn't affection in her voice, but there wasn't the same hardness, either. More a tired, resigned sort of bent to her voice, and the world-weary sigh of a woman who'd seen far too much over the years. "As I said before in the car a few days ago, I understand how it is when you feel you're doing the best by leaving someone." 

Miles blinked, trying to still himself, trying to stop the tears. Taking his glasses off and wiping them on his slacks, he replaced them and looked at her once again. "Thankyou for being there for him," he said quietly. He didn't need to add what had been a question on his mind for his entire stay--  _Do you love him?_ \-- the answer was sitting opposite him, trying to explain it.

"It wasn't entirely one-sided." There was a hidden depth to that statement, something else which made him uncomfortable but which he couldn't quite fathom. "Phoenix has been there for me, as well." She smiled faintly, and he could see, in the dim light of the living area, that there was a sparkle in her eyes which hadn't been there before. He wondered, for a brief moment, what would have happened if he'd returned earlier, before they'd become a couple. Before Thalassa had broken through his new-found cynicism and careless attitude.

Would they have lasted? Or would they have eventually eroded what was left of one another? He wasn't sure any more.

He offered her a weak smile. "I'm glad the two of you found one another," he said quietly. Perhaps that was the moment when what was left of his heart split in two-- there was a silence, a stillness then, something he couldn't quite believe-- had he  _meant_  what he'd said just then, or was he just trying to be fair? He drank the remainder of his tea, and offered her another lopsided smile.  _To love something is to set it free... and hope it comes back._  He'd heard that somewhere, and Thalassa had practically said as much with the references to taking a gamble earlier.

There was nothing left to say. 

 

 _If it doesn't return, it was never yours to begin with._

"I suppose I'd best head off," he offered as a means of farewell. Closing her eyes and offering a little nod, Thalassa seemed to understand. She extended a hand to him, and he shook it.

"I'm glad we finally met, Mr. Edgeworth."

He gave her a slight nod and a smile that almost hurt as he returned the handshake. "As am I, Mrs. Wright."

 

 

He stepped out into the predawn light, still as artificial and unnatural as it had been when he was returning Apollo to his home. He made his way back to the Gatewater, refusing to think about what had just happened, his body and his mind numb and cold with the chill of the night air. 

He could process it later; for now, he needed sleep.

His hotel room felt empty, for some reason-- only a couple of hours before, Apollo had been in here, using his bathroom to clean up, changing into his pyjamas-- he could  _swear_  he could still smell a distinct whiff of cologne that wasn't his in the air around him; there was something entirely melancholic about that.

It was quarter to four, according to his travel alarm clock. The sky outside his window offered no suggestion as to what was really going on in the world outside his walls; the dots and flickers of neon lights still remained the same; Japanifornia never slept, it was a world suspended in time with its lighting; it was being inside a casino or a factory once the sky darkened.

In the distance, he swore he could see the yellow lamplight of the Wright Anything Agency, and he felt another pang of empty, brokenhearted sadness. He closed the curtains; it was too early in the morning to deal with this; he could think about it later, after a decent night's-- or day's-- sleep; he could awake refreshed and contemplate the past few days while heading home to Germany. He could tell Franziska some sort of half-truth which would explain the early return and the absence of a foolishly sentimental story; he'd seen Wright, seven years on, disbarred and in a grotty old hoodie-- and he'd realised that the man he'd had inconvenient feelings towards had metamorphosed into someone else. Franziska could laugh and snap her whip, call him a fool and call the disbarred attorney a fool; he could save face and all would be right in the world.

He had a long shower where he smiled to himself, noticing that one of the complimentary shampoo bottles was partially empty; the only sign Apollo had left of being here. He thought of him affectionately, and once again, there was a pang of remorse; he shouldn't have slept with him, he shouldn't have wanted him to be Wright so badly-- but there was, of course, the fact that if he hadn't had the involvement he'd had with Apollo, he probably wouldn't have helped him out of the bar like that. He'd done one decent thing while he'd been here, he told himself as he lathered his hair, he'd made one wrong thing -- not quite  _right_ , but less wrong. Rinsing himself off and grabbing a towel, he padded through to the hotel room and collapsed on the bed, exhausted and naked and considering helping himself to the minibar. He regretted not acquiring sleeping pills for the half-hour he remained awake, lying on the mattress and thinking about what had happened over the course of the morning already.

 

 

He awoke to the sound of the  _Platinum Samurai_  themesong. Virtually unheard of in Germany, the ringtone was distinctly his over there; here, it wasn't unusual for he and Wright to confuse their phones because they'd shared the same ringtone. Or that had been the case  _years ago_ , he reminded himself.

Seven years on, and there had been several incarnations of the  _Samurai_  franchise; the Pink Princess had had her series and her day in the sun, the Nickel, Titanium and Platinum samurais had had their shows; a spin-off drama series had followed-- things could change, but there was always the soothing lull of reasonably familiar, and absorbing-- television. 

He'd been asleep when it had started, but he'd suspected it would be serious if someone was bothering to call him. His thoughts turned to one workplace or another, and to Franziska-- didn't dramatic news always come on the phone, waking someone up, first thing in the morning? Not even checking the caller, he clicked at the panel.

"Mister-- Edgeworth?"

He wasn't expecting to hear Apollo's voice on the other end of the line. It was a literal and most irritating wakeup call.

"Apollo." He couldn't-- and didn't want to-- hide the tiredness in his voice. He wasn't in the mood for speaking to him right now either: a few more hours sleep would have been appreciated-- and then something horrible occurred to him. "Is everything all right?" He stretched and turned. This was autodrive; if this was an emergency involving Wright--  _any_  of them, now-- he would return, quickly as possible.

He was Miles Edgeworth, and he did that. Even Wright had realised this. 

  
Shifting so that he was sitting up, he tried to gaze out the window.

"Everything's fine," Apollo said quietly. "My mother and Mr. Wright have headed out for breakfast somewhere; she said it was important that they have  _time together_ "-- he sounded amusingly childlike and disgusted rather than an adult irritated by the inherent romance in such a plan-- "and Trucy's about to leave for school."

This hardly seemed like an emergency.

"And?" he asked. On such little sleep, and being woken in this manner, it wasn't at all surprising that he wasn't in a wonderful mood.

"I just wanted to talk to you," he said quickly. "And return your pyjamas."

There was a strange sweetness in the suggestion.

"How are you  _feeling_?"

"I've been better," Apollo admitted. "But I just wanted to return your pyjamas and to say thankyou." He paused. "I don't know when you're flying out and..."

It wasn't even that day. But Miles knew he could, and probably should tell a white lie here.

"This afternoon," he said coolly.

"I suppose Mr. Wright and my mother will be home by then." He'd been pushed into a corner, he'd had his own logic twisted against him-- by a rookie of a defense attorney who was a decade younger than him. He thought of Franziska's sneer and crack of the whip and Manfred's disgust. At that moment, he was cursing Kristoph Gavin for yet another reason. 

"I'll be over as soon as I can," he promised before snapping the phone shut.

 

 


	12. Morning After

He felt like an intruder when he knocked on the door. He'd done what he'd needed to last night; today should have been a day of rest and reflection. Or avoidance of reflection. 

Instead, he was knocking on the door of the office, feeling like a nervous teenager about to pick up a girl for a date, waiting anxiously like some kind in a movie when times were more innocent and picking up a girl for a date was the honorable thing to do. Even though it was early in the morning and that would be ridiculous, even though his teenage years had been consumed with legal studies and nothing as ridiculous as social frivolity, and even though his romantic inclinations had neither been towards girls nor people of his own age. 

He bit his lip, pushing that thought to the back of his mind. The sense of waiting around like this was influenced by lighthearted Hollywood films, it was an entirely sensible comparison, he thought as he toyed nervously with his cravat, it wasn't--

"Hi." Apollo opened the door; he was sleepy and his hair stuck up at odd angles. He was wearing a red bathrobe and he'd made absolutely no effort to hide the fact that he was feeling as tired and awful as Miles did.

"I'm sorry to have called so early," he said, a drowsy hum in his voice, "But I didn't want you to feel you needed to show up while my mother and Mr. Wright were here."

Did he  _really_  need those pyjamas back? He'd promised to turn up, though, and unlike some people, his word was his honour. 

Even if broken promises could sometimes push life in a more appropriate direction.

"I spoke with your mother last night," he said. "It was..." And for once, the man of several languages and a constant stream of witty remarks was speechless. "I appreciated it," he said. "Your mother is a good person."

Apollo didn't respond to that, but gestured for him to step inside. "I kind of wanted to talk to you," he admitted. "Last night didn't go too well."

It was strange, because in a way, it had for Miles. Hearing what he had from Thalassa had given him necessary closure, at least, and in the back of his mind he at least had the security that Wright--  _this_  Wright, when he could get around to forgiving him-- was happy and loved. 

"It could have been worse," he said vaguely. 

Apollo smiled shyly. "I all but passed out once I got to my room," he said. "I don't remember a lot from last night, except for being in that bar, and talking to that man who kept touching me and sounding very pompous." He chuckled. "He said something about strawberries..." He trailed off, embarrassed, his face turning pink. "Would you like a cup of tea?"

There was a strange pervasive awkwardness between them which Miles didn't know what to do with, so he agreed to the tea and sat down on one of the sofas. 

"I'm glad you decided to come back," Apollo chattered away to himself, "Because it inspired Mr. Wright to finally buy some decent tea." He chuckled. "Mr. Gavin would have been horrified by the cheap stuff he used to get..."

Miles didn't know what to make of that statement; there as a peculiar sentimentality in the idea of Wright, who clearly despised him, buying a specific brand of tea for him, the idea that eight years on, he'd remembered a seemingly insignificant detail like that.

They waited for the tea to brew and Miles picked a piece of lint off his slacks.

"And, um, I'm glad to have met you," he continued. "And I appreciate what you did for me the other day with driving me to the prison and then the bar, and..."

The one thing that he wasn't mentioning was the thing he couldn't easily forget; that strange moment following the return home from the execution, that raw, strange moment when they'd-- vulgar as it was to describe it as such--  _fucked_.

He watched as the younger man filled two cups of tea and brought them to the table, sitting down nervously on the opposite sofa. 

"I know I've only known you a few days--" he started to say, and Miles cut him off, standing up, panicked. This was sounding far too like that fateful day which had been the start of all this drama-- Apollo looked the part of Wright, too, vulnerable and nervous and tentative. His insides twisted, and he could feel a hotness coming into his cheeks.

"What happened after your mentor's execution was a mistake," he said coolly.

Apollo watched him carefully, uncomfortable. "I didn't think you wanted to talk about that."

"I suppose we need to." Miles inhaled sharply, his breath hissing. "I don't usually do things like that, and-- even though--"

"I don't, either." There was an almost hopeful smile on Apollo's face then. "But I don't regret it even though I probably should."

"I--" 

And then Miles was cut off, by an embarrassed confession from Apollo. "I feel like I kind of took advantage of you," he said quietly. he was shaking nervously. "And you've just been decent about it, and you listened to all my issues with Mr. Gavin and Mr. Wright and--"

This was wrong; a strange sort of turnabout; Apollo wasn't the one taking advantage of anyone here;  _he_  had, and the guilt had now risen to the surface. 

"And then you were nice enough to bring me back from that bar, and..." He sipped at his tea then, gulping and wincing at the heat. Looking up at him, determined, he admitted it-- "You're  _not_  Mr. Wright.  _Or_  Mr. Gavin."

Miles blinked, and his voice softened. "Neither are you," he said quietly. "And I don't think you have any reason to feel guilty." He sipped his own tea then, savouring the taste. "People make mistakes, Apollo."

Apollo's face tinged pink then. "I wish I hadn't made a mistake with  _you_ ," he murmured. 

Miles offered a sad smile, and blinked. "It's all right," he said. "No damage done." And he was right, it was honesty rather than a sugar-coated attempt at alleviating guilt; Justice  _hadn't_  done anything. Nothing worse or more unforgivable than he had.

He didn't quite look as though he believed him, or the smile Miles offered. 

"Really," he said. "I've enjoyed your company, Apollo." Another smile. "I should thank you for making an otherwise uncomfortable vacation enjoyable." He glanced down at the teacup in front of him. "And for your tea-making skills." He thought to himself about the way Wright could never make a decent cup of tea, about how he seemed to lack the awareness of what constituted a  _good_  cup of tea. 

Apollo smiled clumsily. "I guess you can thank Mr. Gavin for that."

"Your mentor taught you well," he said wryly.

Smiling sadly, Apollo hesitated before speaking. "I'd like to remain in contact with you after you go back to Germany," he said quietly and seriously. 

"I can give you my card," Miles said with a nod, reaching into his inner pocket and finding one, handing it to the younger man. "At any rate, this has been a decent networking exercise, I suppose." He smiled broadly and finished his cup of tea, a realisation that he was now hungry occurring to him, and that eating something would probably bring about sleep in a much more timely fashion.

"I suppose I should head off before Wright and your mother return."

Blinking again, his eyes frantic and horrified, Apollo remained silent. 

"I suppose I should get my pyjamas."

"Yes." Standing up and walking through to the study, the last look he cast him was one of sadness. It bothered Miles, though he wasn't sure why; he had all the things he'd longed for when he was younger; his mother had returned from apparent death, he had a laid-back father figure, a younger sister who seemed to adore him rather than terrify him-- and he had support that he wasn't even aware of. Except it wasn't working for him.

He glanced around the apartment's living area for what he suspected would be the last time; even if he ran into Wright somewhere down the track years later, all of this would be gone. With a level of irritation, he noticed the legal texts in the bookcase opposite him-- why the  _hell_  had Wright just given up like that, anyway? The dark notion that Kristoph Gavin had somehow destroyed a chunk of his self-confidence occurred to him, and he pushed it away from his mind, conflicted. Perhaps it wasn't his place to judge a man he'd not known.

When Apollo returned with a small bag, containing the pyjamas, he gave the young man a nod and a smile. "Thankyou." 

"That's... okay." The air around them had become tense again for some reason; Miles wondered if Apollo's eerie ability to notice changes in his environment extended to a psychic awareness of when Wright and Thalassa were due to return.

"Any plans for today?" Apollo asked good naturedly as Miles headed towards the door.

"Breakfast and sleep." It was casual conversation, the sort of thing you said when it was pointless talking about the weather and politics weren't necessarily shared.

  
"I could get dressed and introduce you to the cafe down the road," Apollo said softly. "They have this range of imported tea and the best croissants imaginable." His embarrassment was covered with more nervous rambling. "I've been down there with Trucy in the past; she likes the cupcakes they have in the windows-- and I've found it to be good when I just need to get out of here and have somewhere quiet to read--"

It sounded lovely, but Miles shook his head. "I'll just grab something at the hotel, I think," he said before adding a tactful "Maybe another time."

He knew there would be no  _other time_ , and he offered Apollo a warm, final smile. "It was a pleasure getting to meet you, Apollo," he said. "I wish you nothing but the very best."

Standing where he was in the middle of the room, Apollo made no move towards Miles as he stepped out of the door. "Goodbye, Mr. Edgeworth," he said quietly.

 

 

 

He'd seen the cafe Apollo had spoken of as he drove back to the hotel-- it wasn't even open yet, but it did look nice. He could imagine Apollo sitting there on one of the tables, lost in contract law or piles of legislation, a cup of tea in front of him and a determined, serious look on his face.

He tried not to think about it; he'd only known Apollo for a few days; they'd been emotionally turbulent and difficult. He suspected the vaguely uneasy feeling in his stomach was due to hunger pains; he'd take care of that at the Gatewater when he returned; he'd call for room service, he'd get toast and a pot of tea. And his well-deserved, much-needed sleep.

  
He didn't see the hardcover book in the bag until he'd placed it down next to the bed and realised there was a weight there which couldn't have come from a pair of pyjamas. He'd not opened the bag to verify the contents, but the dull thud it made when it touched the ground aroused his curiousity. He picked it up and put it on his bed, lying next to it as he loosened his cravat.

The pyjamas were folded neatly; he smiled at the thought for some reason-- it was just so  _like_  Apollo, so delicate and orderly. Removing them, he found the book and took it out, puzzled. It wasn't his-- his own books had remained in his suitcase, barely touched-- and it looked old, judging from the ratted pages and the worn leather cover with no title. 

He flipped it open and a photograph fell out-- it was  _him_ ; younger and stern-faced, Miles Edgeworth who was no longer the demon prosecutor but the man who'd returned to Japanifornia to brave the ice and the cold on behalf of his friend when he'd fallen from that bridge.

The Miles Edgeworth who was two months away from making the most cowardly decision of his life.

He placed the photograph next to him, face-down on the bed, and allowed himself to look between the covers-- just a peek, he told himself, just a means of ascertaining  _whom_  the book belonged to.

It was Wright's chickenscratch which confronted him; there was a strange sentimentality to seeing old dates, past times, at the top of every page. He flipped through it, not reading; the sick feeling had returned to his stomach, and he suspected why: he was, in a way, invading Wright's privacy. Even though he'd possibly forgotten about the journal, enough to not be aware of the fact that Apollo had apparently acquired it, it was still  _his_ , and he had no business reading--

As the pages used increased, there was a noticable pattern; the detail of the entries fell away. The last third of the book contained two words on every page under the date:  _Still waiting_. Sometimes written entirely in capital letters, sometimes a vague, barely-there scrawl, sometimes just noted down as though Wright had been in the middle of something else.

He flipped to the end, and replaced the photograph. The date on the page was from more than six years ago, and the last two words were predictably heart-breaking.

 _Still waiting_.

  
He'd upheld his end of the bargain, the bargain Miles had never agreed to, and somewhere along the way, he'd found happiness with someone else. Never before had had been so grateful for Thalassa Gramarye for appearing in his life, for Trucy and Apollo and the inadvertent matchmaking from Kristoph Gavin.

 _Did you finally realise that he'd never gotten over you?_

About eight years too late. He slammed the cover shut and pushed it roughly against the side of the bed. This was his fault, his doing, his stupidity. And he couldn't even fix it any more; there was nothing  _left_  to fix; Wright had done that on his own and with Thalassa's assistance.

For some reason then, he had a strange urge to talk to someone, to sit with them in peace for as long as he needed; stranger still, the first person to come to his mind wasn't ever-faithful Gumshoe-- whom he'd still not seen; not his stern and sharp sister-- it was Apollo Justice. He didn't want to think about that; he wanted to do what he could and leave in peace, remove himself from the people he'd damaged and let them go about their recovery.

He could do one thing, though, even if it angered Wright: he could return the journal.

 

 

 

They were still out, fortunately, as suggested by the fact that the car was absent out the front of the building. For a second, Miles felt relieved; he could leave the journal and return to the hotel, have his breakfast and sleep. There was elegance in the simplicity of the plan, he didn't have to deal with Wright at all.

But then there was the unfairness of it; it was leaving Wright's journal-- which wouldn't fit through the mail slot anyway, he realised, as he tried giving it another push-- for anyone else in the apartment to find. Apollo might have already read it, but Trucy? Thalassa might have known, but had she seen it in black and white, the anger in the capital letters, the desperate misery in the tiny, messy lowercase? Probably not, and Miles doubted either she nor Wright would appreciate a reminder. Then there was the idea about what would happen if Wright knew where the journal had come from-- Apollo, with his sweet, misguided sense of doing the right thing, would probably be feeling worse about living in the apartment.

The idea of taking it with him and mailing it back occurred to Miles, as did the idea of idea of throwing it in one of the trash cans in People Park on his way to the airport-- but holding onto it seemed to invite invading Wright's privacy for no reasonable reason: there was no point in reflecting on the past and clinging to what had been; the past had taught him a valuable lesson as had his return, but what was gone-- was gone.

In a last ditch effort to avoid having to think about what to do with the journal, he knocked on the door, only realising afterwards that it would be extremely awkward handing the wretched book back to Apollo and saying "No thankyou" if he was home; if not, his action was entirely pointless. 

He didn't expect the door to open, or for Phoenix Wright to be standing there, the look of curiousity as to whom might be waiting outside changing to anger in less than a second.

He didn't say anything; he glared. Miles forced himself to look him in the eye, and noticed the way his right eye turned out slightly-- had he never noticed that before?-- and cleared his throat.

"I think this belongs to you, Wright," he said, holding out the journal in front of him.

He wanted the door to be slammed in his face. He didn't want Wright to snatch it away roughly and growl "Why the  _hell_  did you come back here, anyway?"

"I think it was obvious," Miles said coolly. He liked the way he could maintain calm when Wright was clearly aggravated-- it was beautiful in court and could be here. But now wasn't the time for a smirk and a waggled finger or an elaborate sneer of a bow. He glanced down at the diary and then at Wright. "I felt you would probably want this back, and it wasn't mine to throw out."

Having realised what it already was, Wright's scowl only worsened. "You stole my  _journal_?" he asked incredulously. He stepped back, as though frightened.

"No." Miles grimaced, furious; he was doing the correct thing in returning it, and while Wright's logic for  _once_  seemed to be coming to some reasonable deductions, this time it was  _wrong_. He'd spent a painful week coming to terms with the mistakes he  _had_  made, so to be accused of one he had not-- and not so much a  _mistake_ , either, but a deliberate act-- it wasn't just unfair, it was factually incorrect. "How I came upon the journal-- and  _yes_ , Wright, I know what it is because the cover offers nothing as to the contents-- isn't of your concern-- but since it was in my possession, I felt the right thing to do was to return it to its owner.

Wright looked down at it sharply and then back at Miles, as though he were about to throw it-- loose photographs and all-- back at him, and tell him to leave. Miles waited for it, almost hopeful.

"Justice," Wright said softly.

"Pardon?"

Slamming the journal down on the glass coffee tale with such force that Miles was surprised not to hear a terrifying  _crack_  from it, his expression intensified. There wasn't just irritation and anger any more, but aggression and  _rage_ , a frightening sort of bloodlust which left Miles frozen to the spot as much as he was anxious to leave.

"You know what I'm talking about," Wright growled. "Either you'd have to be socially oblivious, or have a threshold for denial which would put most leaders and politicians to shame--" He stopped, and smirked. As though something had just happened, as though Miles had reacted, when he knew in fact he had not.

"Are you  _still_  carrying around that magatama?" 

Wright said nothing, though it was enough for Miles to deduce he had been. "I did you the favour of only flipping through the diary to find out who it belonged to," he said tersely, "So I'd appreciate it if you left my secrets alone, too."

"You got the journal from Justice, didn't you?" Wright asked.

Miles said nothing.

Wright glared at him then, furious. "I'm going to say this slowly," he said, an exasperated hiss escaping him. "Because I know that you're either  _above_  such things or you merely find them  _amusing_ \-- but it's clearly obvious that the kid is infatuated with you." 

It was like a slap in the face. Reeling, trying to string a coherent sentence together, Miles waited for an appropriate response to come to him, but was cut off by his former friend, furious and defensive. "And if you even  _think_ you're going to string him along and put him through what you put  _me_  through, Edgeworth, you have something else coming to you."

"I--"

"I mean it," Wright snarled. "I know more about what he's been through than you could fathom; I saw the whole mess with Kristoph Gavin unrav--"

"He still had the right to go to the execution." Arms crossed and glaring at him, Miles felt suddenly defensive himself. "You did  _not_  have the right to make that decision for him."

"Neither did you." 

"Oh? And what were Mr. Gavin's parting words to him? Did he dig the knife in a bit deeper, twist it around some--"

"You can stop the attempts at bad poetry, Wright," Miles said coldly. "He did no such thing."

"I'm surprised. He spent seven years screwing with the poor kid's head and--"

"You were the one in a relationship with him." Miles could feel his voice rising and was horrified with himself. "It's the utmost in hypocrisy for  _you_ , of all people, to be behaving like some sort of spurned lover even though you ran to the arms of someone else five minutes after I left and it didn't work out."

Stepping back again, Wright blinked, angry, still, though genuinely confused. "There was no relationship with Kristoph," he said. "There was a shared kind of mutual friendship and distrust-- it didn't take me long to suspect that he was the one who brought me down, but I was damned if I was going to be disbarred and not even know  _why_." Suddenly, his face had changed; some of the rage had gone, and there was an odd sort of reminiscence. "I kept my distance from Justice for a reason: I didn't want him to become embroiled in the whole mess if he didn't have to be."

"But he  _did_ , didn't he?"

"That was unavoidable," Wright said, rubbing his neck.

"And he  _still_  is, isn't he?"

"I know he doesn't need further trouble with  _you_ , Edgeworth." He spoke clearly, but there was a shudder which ran through his words. "He's a good kid-- he's bright, he's dedicated, he's determined. And he doesn't need to become a bitter old man before he's thirty because he made the mistake of caring about someone incapable of caring about him."

There was a silence, then, and Miles felt the urge to turn on his heel, slam the door and leave.

"Do you honestly think I never cared for you?"

Wright blinked again, and turned away, walking in long, quick strides towards the kitchen. "You might as well take the remainder of that tea with you," he said, opening a cupboard, "It's not like--"

"You're avoiding the question." Miles remained where he was standing.

"You never contacted me."

"I was only half of the equation, Wright-- if I recall our circumstances,  _you_  never contacted me  _either_."

"I didn't want to bother you," he said. "You with your busy jet-setting lifestyle, prosecuting the planet, doing things which earned you international headlines-- what was I supposed to say, Edgeworth-- that back in a boring old park, staring into the sky every evening, I was waiting, hoping that somewhere in your schedule you'd have the time and inclination to remember me?"

The hurt in his voice was obvious now, but he hadn't stopped.

"And  _then_ , a few months afterwards, that I'd been disbarred for forged evidence, that I was living out of my former office, and that I'd acquired a little girl? What would you have said to that?"

"I don't know," Miles offered quietly. "I probably would have returned and offered assistance."

"What could you have  _done_?" Wright snapped back at him, flicking the kettle on as though by means of habit-- "You have even less experience with children than I did, and by that stage, there was nothing anyone could do about my disbarment." He paused, and inhaled. "And anyway," he continued, "it was undignified. I'd already suffered the loss of my profession, my standing in the community, and my home-- and there were times I'd mill over in my head that maybe I somehow  _did_  forge that diary page, or that somehow I knew the evidence was fishy-- that I  _should_  have known better and that running to you would have just looked like pathetic sniveling, like I was a poor loser..." He trailed off then and there was a brief silence before the plastic click of the kettle as it switched off. "I hit the lowest point of my life in those first few months, Edgeworth."

He opened his mouth and shut it, glancing at the journal on the table which he'd not read. He wondered what Wright's observations looked like from that time but didn't know what to say. So he offered a quiet apology.

"I suppose since the kettle's boiled, we might as well make use of it," Wright said, a note of bitter resentment in his voice. 

"If you're putting yourself through this for my sake," Miles said quietly, "Then don't."

Looking him in the eye and blinking once more, Wright almost nodded. "No," he said finally, "I'm not. I've waited nearly eight years to talk to you, and now you're here, and I suspect I'll probably never see you again. So let's get this over with."

Was the lump in his throat caused by indignant rage, or regret for lost time and the question of what might have happened if he'd called Wright in those first few months? Miles wasn't sure, but he sat down on the sofa and waited for Wright to prepare the tea.

It was weak, he realised when he sipped it, but he didn't say anything. Sitting this close to him and studying him carefully, he could see the change in the other man; the stubble and a soft, silvery scar from a clumsy shaving accident some time before; the slightly tanned flush Wright had to his complexion; he'd aged. There was still that brightness in his eyes if you looked hard enough, but he wasn't the same man from seven years ago.

The journal sat in front of them, an unmentioned testament to the past.

  
It was strange, then, sitting opposite him, Miles thought; this was the man who'd inspired trips across the world at a moment's notice, a strange sense of the heroic in him, a desire to make things right, to repay him for favours he'd never realised. Wright had made him forget his own problems at times, Wright had made him seemingly come back from the dead and face his reality, his destiny; Wright had taught him, more than anyone else, what being a prosecutor really meant.

Wright had, for a few silly moments, inspired a sense of the romantic in him. And now, he was a cynical, stony-faced person who loathed him; he'd only tolerated his hug at the car for an audience, he'd put up with his generosity because it benefited his family.

He longed to say he was sorry things had turned out like this, that his one chance at normal, at comfortable and predictable and real love had turned into this. But reminded of sitting in the same position, speaking with Thalassa the previous night, he couldn't be at all sorry for that.

"I'm sorry I didn't contact you," Miles said. "At the time, I was busy--"

"I understand," Wright said. An attempt at being formal and civil, which was somehow worse than the opposite.

"I was  _busy_ ," Miles continued, his voice dropping down to a low, bare whisper-- "distracting myself." The lump had come back into his throat, the sick, swirling feeling in the pit of his stomach. It was hunger, wasn't it?-- probably not, because he could feel tears pinching at the corners of his eyes. "I should have been there for you-- I could have  _done something_ , at least." He remembered Wright's heartfelt confession about why Miles coming through for him in the class trial twenty-odd years ago and still remembered-- had been such a defining moment. "Even if it was to have made you feel that you weren't alone and had someone on your side."

"I had Trucy for most of the time," Wright said with a nod. "I didn't  _feel_  alone from the moment she arrived; it was strange-- before that trial I'd been depressed-- the Hazakura incident had done something to me; hearing about Larry and Iris hooking up after she was released stung on a level, too. I heard from Maya but it wasn't the same-- everyone had walked out on me, returned to their own lives and I felt as though I was being selfish expecting people to stick around." He blinked then, sipping his own tea. 

"I'm sorry--"

"When the trial happened, at least it was distraction; I never knew that I was going to get messed up with what I did-- I just saw it as another whacky client with a screwball story who I had to defend." There was a slight smile on his face as he spoke. "I didn't even know Kristoph Gavin then, or that the probable murderer in that case would actually be Apollo's father." He sighed. "My life was a strange haze; I was depressed." He stopped talking, then, and looked at Miles carefully. "For the first time in my life, I didn't feel like I was living, just existing, just going through the motions and that some part of me was just stubbornly holding on by a thread just to see what would happen."

Miles nodded, sipping his tea again, uncomfortably reminded of leaving that note and his disappearance-- 

"And then what happened?" Phoenix shrugged, a dark, sarcastic smile appearing on his face. "I got disbarred. I blamed myself. I spent a week locked in my apartment knowing that the rent was due and--"

"I wish you'd called me."

"To say what? Hi, Edgeworth, I'm depressed and being anti-social and feeling sorry for myself, and by the way, my rent's due and I can't earn any money lawyering any more, so I'm about to get evicted'?" The smile had faded, and Wright turned his gaze down to the tabletop, idly playing with a droplet of water on the glass. "Have  _you_  ever had to call up someone and admit that your life has gone down in the gutter and that you're thinking fondly of something randomly ending it for you?"

 _No_. Miles shook his head. He could understand pride, at least.

"And then Trucy showed up, and suddenly I had a reason to get out of bed." He looked around strangely. "It wasn't even love, initially, it was a sense of duty, of responsibility. Of 'I've got this little orphaned kid to take care of for awhile so I'd better do that lest child protective services decide that as well as being a worthless human being and a fraud of a lawyer, I can't even look after another person.'" He smiled, a strange, crumpled sort of close-to-tears smile across the table. "My daughter has no idea that she probably saved my life back then. And that suddenly, I'd woken up and learned a whole lot more about love than I realised." He smiled again, sipping his tea. "She was inconvenient and made everything take much longer than it should have, and she made me think about something bigger than myself and my own misery-- but she somehow pulled me out of it-- without even realising."

He wanted to say something dry and sarcastic, but considering it, the only person whom he'd understood feeling like that was... his father. He thought about when he was small, spending time in the apartment watching television while Gregory read over cases for work; he thought about those strange sad days after his mother didn't return from the hospital and how his father seemed to keep going, to just keep doing things, to keep a sense of normalcy and routine in their lives.

"I think I understand," he said in agreement. "As best as I can, anyway."

Wright nodded quietly. "Gregory?" he asked.

Miles just nodded in agreement, and sipped his tea. There was minor discomfort, not so much  _pain_ , but a bitter, lingering sense of "what if things had happened differently?" rising within him.

"It was a different sort of love, but it saved me," Wright said. He chuckled to himself again. "It was a loophole, I suppose; I'd sworn I was waiting for you, Edgeworth-- and I  _did._ " There was an awkwardness to the statement, and Miles eyed him warily. Not that it really mattered any more, he supposed; until Wright sighed unhappily.

"It was about two years after you'd left," he explained quietly-- "I was seeing Kristoph Gavin regularly-- as  _friends_ \--" He stopped himself. "Not as friends, as a strange sort of company, I guess." He rubbed the back of his neck again and looked down at the tabletop. "There was a weird intensity surrounding him, he was just a collection of half-answered questions. I  _knew_  his assistant idolised him," he continued, "I could see that look on his face--" and he stopped himself awkwardly, before continuing-- "and that was just one thing. I always suspected that I never got the full story from him about anything; he was slippery and good at distracting and derailing anything that looked like questioning." 

Miles nodded, unsure where this was leading. "He and I were playing the same game, essentially, not revealing too much about who we were while letting enough details float to the surface for some semblance of familiarity." He stopped then, and sipped his tea, his eyes blinking, big and uncertain if he should continue. Clutching his elbow again, stuffing himself into the side of the sofa, still surprised that Wright was talking to him, Miles nodded, leaning in, wanting to hear whatever remained. 

"He knew about you," he said quietly. "I didn't mean for it to happen, but he caught me at a vulnerable point-- it wasn't long after I'd started suspecting there was something quite  _wrong_  with him, that the perfect facade he was upholding wasn't just about vanity and pride and being annoyed that I cost him a front page case-- it was more than that--" He twisted uncomfortably in the seat. "Trucy never trusted him, she said there was something blank about him-- on the few occasions he'd come over to the office, I'd see him trying to talk and play with her, and she never warmed to him." He stopped, defiant. "And I  _know_  my daughter-- this was the little girl who was open and friendly with just about everyone. Trucy's always been like that; she's sharp and clever and can see through people, but there's a genuinely outgoing friendliness about her. That she didn't trust Kristoph was like someone setting off an alarm to me." 

"You could have called me," Miles interrupted. 

"That was the thing," Phoenix said. "I couldn't. He knew who you were-- you'd become an excuse of sorts-- he'd hit on me and flirted with me and I'll admit--" he turned away for a moment then-- "that in some of my lonelier moments, I considered letting him have what he wanted. What I might have wanted at the time, a surface comfort where if not anything else, I could have comfort and companionship and know that I was never going to get hurt by him _because_  he was untrustworthy and part of me couldn't--  _didn't_  get taken in by him."

Miles thought of the  _companions_  he'd acquired for a short period of time in Germany and Borginia and France. He thought of their common features, the  _one_  common feature, and sighed.

"At times, it seemed almost practical," he continued. "In some ways, Kristoph had a familiarity about him which reminded me of you."

Miles raised an eyebrow angrily, and sipped his tea again, wondering if now he could point out that Wright should know by now that tea didn't brew in under a minute.

"He was clever and bilingual and--"

"I can speak _several_ languages, thankyouverymuch," Miles interjected--

"You know what I mean." Wright sat back in the sofa, sighing. "He was  _fastidious_  about his tea being served the right way, he was a perfectionist, and he didn't tolerate fools very well."

And he stopped again, his fingertips playing with the cuff of his hoodie. "And there was a coldness about him, something you couldn't quite get close to." He blinked before looking away. "I couldn't help but notice the similarities, and wondering if he could be any sort of a substitute for you, if it might make things a bit easier..." He looked down at the tabletop again, and Miles remained seated as he was, frozen.

"I never did though."

Miles stared at him blankly, hand on his teacup. "I don't know why you're telling me this, Wright."

Phoenix blinked and sighed. "I don't know why I am, either." He shrugged. "But I am, I guess." He laughed, dry and only partially amused. His hand rubbed at the back of his neck. "In a way, that stupid promise probably saved me from allowing myself to get swept up in all of Kristoph's lies and bullshit." There was a fond, reminiscent smile. "Not long before the first trial, before when Zak Gramarye was killed-- there  _had_  been a time-- it was Valentine's Day-- Kristoph was feeling amorous and romantic, I suppose... I was just lonely." Another bitter laugh. "He offered intimacy and a compelling argument-- that I was using you to remain distant from him, that you were nothing more than an excuse."

Miles cleared his throat, unsure whether not to mention that Thalassa had made the same observation. 

"I genuinely believed you were coming back," he said quietly, "But by that stage, the hope was fading: I'd become a father in those years, I was worried about earning enough money to put food on the table and pay rent-- perhaps Kristoph was right and I was just too busy and using you to avoid relationships with other people." He shifted again, uncomfortable.

"Why would you do that, though?" Miles asked. "Surely..." 

"Surely,  _what_ , Edgeworth? Surely I  _knew_  you were planning to return?" He was incredulous and angry. "I  _waited_. Like a stood up date-- when what happened between Kristoph and I happened-- and it probably wasn't what either you  _or_  Justice think it was-- it was a lapse in judgement." His eyes widened and for one moment, he looked horrified, before looking away. "I didn't do anything; he did, and for that one time, I just didn't refuse his advances."

Miles sipped his tea again, watching him. He was upset, as much as he knew he shouldn't be-- what  _had_  he expected? For Wright to wait  _forever_?

"I felt like I'd somehow jinxed the promise," he continued gravely. "As though by giving in, I'd cemented the idea that you weren't coming back... because... I didn't deserve you. That part of me didn't  _care_  if you'd returned."

"Wright--"

"I guess it was then that I realised something: I didn't hate you any more." He sighed, and looked up again, no longer ashamed and hurt, but somehow defiant. "I couldn't hate you-- you weren't  _there_  to hate, and you hadn't been for a long time." He sighed then, one hand rested against his cheek. "And I don't hate you any more, Edgeworth." There was a weak smile. "I suppose that's something."

Miles offered a vague smile then. "I'm so sorry," he said.

"By the time Thalassa came along, I felt like I was all but numb to the idea of having a relationship with anyone. That the only love I was capable of was what I had for Trucy." 

"I understand that." He sighed. "And I'm glad you didn't get further into things with Kristoph." He was; anger, disappointment and humiliation aside, he was grateful that Wright hadn't been more damaged by the master manipulator. 

"I saw what happened to Justice," he said. "I tried to talk to him about it-- he wouldn't listen, as you don't when you love someone." He sighed. "I could have blamed childish naivete on his part, but--" and he fiddled with the cuff of his sleeve again-- "I understand."

Miles couldn't help it if his face lit up then, but Wright corrected him.

"A few weeks after I'd taken Trucy in, I had child protection show up at my door," he explained. "Two workers; a couple of people in their forties, asking me, 'Do you  _really_  know what you're doing, Mr. Wright?' as though I was some kind of idiot who didn't understand." And he smiled then. "And I said I did, even though I had no idea at the time. But I loved her. I didn't realise it then and wouldn't have called it that, but that's what it was."

"I understand," Miles said with a nod then, a sadness in his voice, the lump in his throat coming back. "I  _do_  know what it's like to love someone."

Wright sipped his tea again and looked at him. "I don't think you do," he said. 

"Pardon me?"

"I don't think you really do, Edgeworth." He paused, putting his cup down again. "Love isn't just about grand romantic gestures and acts of heroism; love's about something you've never been able to handle."

"I know," he said tightly. "I ran away--"

"It's about taking a _risk_." He paused again, looking around. "And I took that with you; I was risking a lot waiting for you to return-- including the fact that you wouldn't." And then he sighed. "I suppose I'd stopped risking that-- and I decided to take a different risk-- with Thalassa-- when we wound up getting it together." 

Miles nodded. 

"And I suppose she was taking a risk with me: what if I still loved you?-- what if I'd leave her when you showed up?-- but she took that risk anyway." 

Blinking from across the table, Miles looked at his friend. "Pains me as it does to say it," he said slowly, "I'm glad that you took that risk."

And he was. He could barely fathom what he was saying, but seeing Wright sitting there, talking about Thalassa like that, speaking as though he honestly knew love, he realised he was happy for him. In the most soul-shattering way ever. Wright probably never  _would_  understand how much he loved him-- enough to see him happy with someone else, without wanting to interfere at all, or to compete.

Wright stood up, stretching. "I suppose I got over you a long time ago, Edgeworth-- maybe I'd just never expected to see you again, and seeing you brought back a lot of memories."

And Miles stood up, too, and walked across to the other side of the table to where his friend was standing. 

He didn't expect Wright to open his arms, offering a tired hug and a smile. And he didn't expect himself to fall into that hug, his own arms reaching around and holding him tight, relishing that warmth of his body against his own, trying to find the familiarity of the body he'd known seven years ago.

"I love you," he murmured, and Wright merely nodded, still holding him against him, "I just realised it too late... I'm sorry."

"There's nothing to be sorry for," Wright said, hugging him back. "It's alright now."

And then neither of them said anything. Miles' head was spinning, full of things he hadn't but could have said, thinking about Wright and his partnership, found against all odds, about his narrow escape from Kristoph Gavin, about the way he and Thalassa had both been Trucy's parents, and about-- 

Apollo was a less comfortable consideration. He didn't know what to think of Apollo. He  _liked_  him, certainly, and he could recognise more than a few similarities they shared, and a number of positives about him which were certainly good points. 

He'd left a card for him, and the request to call him-- but he'd expected the same of Wright-- and he hadn't called. Ever. Still hugging Wright, he thought about it guiltily-- he could leave tonight and wait. Hoping for a call which might not ever come. Or he could say something now, do something stupidly, sentimentally unnerving for all involved-- which was probably inappropriate given the circumstances...

He pulled away from Wright.

"Don't you have a plane to catch?" he asked affably, smiling through tears-- when had he started crying, anyway?-- "Haven't you got to  _be somewhere_ , Edgeworth?"

He nodded. "Yes," he said. "But--" And it was a struggle to say it but he did anyway. "I was hoping to have a word with Justice before I left."

Wright looked at him intently then, curious. 

"I need to set something straight with him."

And Wright nodded, possibly understanding. 

"Thankyou," he said quietly. "The last thing he needs is more to deal with."


	13. Epilogue

Eight years ago. Six impossible things.

He hadn't had breakfast until the afternoon; he'd found himself an airport cafe still serving croissants and tea late into the day. He'd organised himself, said a brief hello and goodbye to Gumshoe, who'd been delirious with excitement to finally see him, but he hadn't stayed long. The apartment had been kept in good condition, though he'd warned the detective that it was likely he'd be returning to Japanifornia in the near future. He'd come home, he said, but he had some professional details to iron out back in Germany.

He'd managed to get through the day on hunger and caffeine-- he'd had tea at Wright's, tea with Gumshoe-- and now, as he thought about the plane trip back, tea with his croissant as he killed forty-five minutes awaiting his flight.

He hadn't expected the return to feel like this: he'd expected so many things to be different. But overwhelmingly, it had been a worthwhile experience, and he'd had the random and perfectly sentimental thought that like that morning,  _Valentine's Day,_  not long after the Hazakura incident, there'd been six impossible things happen to him before breakfast.

The first was that he'd found himself in possession of Wright's diary. Those seven years, wondering what Wright had been doing, at his fingertips, for his perusal. He'd wondered, over the years, what Wright had been doing, what had happened, if he'd been thinking about him and if the promise still mattered.

The second was that he hadn't looked in it. As much as he wanted to, despite the fact that he thought he needed those words, that understanding, as though it would account for something.

The third, he thought, as he chewed down a mouthful of croissant, briefly annoyed at how  _dry_  it was, was that he'd talked to Wright, despite the fact that he'd sworn he'd turn away, that he couldn't quite face him, that he didn't want to.

The fourth was that he realised that the cup of tea which Wright had made was better than  _this_   _drek_ which was being served at a supposed  _cafe_. He couldn't help but smile to himself; Wright could never master a decent cup of tea; in the back of his mind, he thought about how Wright really  _couldn't_  comprehend what a decent-- let alone perfect-- cup of tea was like, and that that surely would have caused disagreements had things progressed between them in some fashion. 

The fifth? He'd realised somewhere amongst that mess that he'd done the  _truly_  impossible: he'd moved on without realising it. He was genuinely happy for the other man, his sole reason for returning to Japanifornia, whose arms he'd hoped to be embraced by in something other than a friendly fashion. He thought of Wright and smiled; yes, things were complicated, things had been uneasy all week-- but he was returning, he swore to himself, he had to. He was taking a risk-- an incredible one given the circumstances-- that he would be compelled to return-- soon, hopefully.

 

He'd returned to the makeshift study after breaking away from Wright; giving it a quick glance, he'd noticed that while there was no spare paper lying about to leave a note, Apollo had left his business card out of place; on the desk-- when he more than likely had adequate storage space for such things. 

He'd hesitated before pulling a pen from his pocket, and he'd left a brief note on the back of the card with a wry smile; Wright had been correct-- he hadn't understood back then-- but now, he was taking a gamble. Of course, he'd done that in returning, but the stakes were raised so high that he wondered if he'd been honestly expecting to lose anyway-- a subconscious avoidance of commitment, a self-sabotage which could be blamed on someone else. 

 

He'd left without a word, he and Wright had hugged once more, and with that, he was gone. He remembered the way he'd felt in that moment; he felt lighter-- there was a whimsical kind of sadness-- life was full of missed opportunities even though he'd seized most of the professional ones which had come his way; but just then, he'd grasped for one.

And then there'd been the sixth impossible thing; the thing he was gambling on despite the raised stakes, despite the fact that they hardly knew one another, that they were both dealing with with their own problems, that possibly now was an inconvenient time to be even thinking about it-- the sixth was the text message which appeared on his phone.

 _I got the message, Miles._  He smiled at the perfect punctuation and lack of shorthand texting. And he approved.  _It was great getting to know you and I hope you have a safe trip back to Germany. As for your suggestion, I wasn't at all put off by it, but I understand: I'll call you in a week._

 _I promise._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I remember writing this for the meme so well, because I remember the conversations it sparked and the sometimes heated discussion. Re-reading it, and editing it up for here-- and revisiting that was a mindtrip; and it made me realise just how amazing some encouragement from Anonymous can be. Love you guys, and thankyou.


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